A Manhattan federal judge has ruled that ground.news may proceed with core claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) against arstechnica.com and Perplexity AI. The lawsuit centers on allegations that the defendants circumvented Google’s anti-bot protections to acquire Reddit content at scale.
Legal Standing and Court Rulings
While the core DMCA claims remain, the court did toss Reddit’s claims regarding unfair competition and unjust enrichment, ruling that the Copyright Act preempted those specific charges.
The legal path forward remains complex. Meredith Rose, a DMCA expert with Public Knowledge, told Ars Technica that Reddit’s position is unusual because the plaintiff in a DMCA suit typically must be the copyright owner, the exclusive licensee, or the party deploying the technological protection measure in question. Rose stated that Reddit appears to be none of those things, suggesting that Google and Reddit may be sort of grasping at whatever tool is available
to combat the rise of AI scraping over the last three years.
Defense Arguments and Discovery
Legal representatives for SerpApi, the firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, maintain confidence in their position. Jeff Homrig, a lawyer for SerpApi, told Ars Technica that the company accesses public search results rather than Reddit’s own platform. Homrig argued that public information does not become protected simply because a platform intends to charge for it.
According to a judge’s opinion by Engelmayer, the case may hinge on discovery regarding whether Reddit ever authorized Google to protect its content within search results. Additionally, SerpApi could strengthen its defense if it can prove that publicly accessible content in Google search results is not protected by the Copyright Act.
Broader Context of AI Scraping and Traffic
The litigation occurs amid a wider conflict between publishers and AI-driven search engines. Reddit is among several companies—including Reuters, Politico, The Economist, USA Today, and People Inc.—reconsidering the level of access they provide to Google as referral traffic declines. According to The Wall Street Journal, Reddit has discussed blocking Google from using its user posts for AI purposes.
The stakes involve significant financial and traffic losses. A 2024 licensing agreement reportedly pays Reddit approximately $60 million per year to provide Google with human conversations for model training. However, publishers are concerned that AI products use this data to answer questions without directing users back to the original source. This trend is reflected in data from Semrush, which shows organic U.S. Google traffic to the national USA Today website fell by nearly half between June 2025 and June 2026. Other declines include:
- Politico: 23% decrease
- CNN: approximately 25% decrease
- Business Insider: more than 85% decrease
The Impact of AI Overviews
The shift toward AI-generated answers has altered user behavior. A Pew Research Center study found that users clicked traditional links in 15% of searches that lacked an AI Overview; that number dropped to 8% when an AI Overview was present. Links contained within Google’s summaries were clicked in only 1% of searches.
Publishers face a difficult choice when using Google’s controls. While they can use Google-Extended to block content from training Gemini, preventing content from appearing in AI Overviews risks reducing visibility in conventional search. In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority recently ordered Google to allow publishers to opt out of AI search features without losing their position in traditional results, a system Google says it will test in Britain before a potential global rollout.
Worth a look
