Earlier this year, an interesting lawsuit was launched, where search engine giant Google sued small company called SerpApi.
SerpApi is a company that provides websites with information on how well they rank in Google's search results for various keywords - and how websites' competitors appear in the search results for each search term.
Google accused SerpApi of unauthorized collection of Google's search result data for its use. As a practical legal weapon, Google used the US DMCA legislation in its lawsuit, which copyright owners use to protect their content.
In practice, Google thus argued that it holds copyright to the search results of its own search engine.
In its response, SerpApi asked the court to dismiss Google's lawsuit against it. SerpApi justified its request by stating that all information Google provides in its search results originates from other websites. And Google itself has collected the information for its search engine from other sources, without ever asking if it itself infringes copyrights by displaying website content in its service.
Now the court has sided with SerpApi and dismissed Google's lawsuit. According to the court, Google's search results do not meet the threshold of originality, meaning copyright does not protect them in any way.
The lawsuit is not yet completely over, as Google has the opportunity to clarify its claim for three weeks and prove that its lawsuit protects the copyrights of the original sources - i.e., websites - rather than its own (which, according to the court, it does not have for the search results).
Google accused SerpApi of unauthorized collection of Google's search result data for its use. As a practical legal weapon, Google used the US DMCA legislation in its lawsuit, which copyright owners use to protect their content.
In practice, Google thus argued that it holds copyright to the search results of its own search engine.
In its response, SerpApi asked the court to dismiss Google's lawsuit against it. SerpApi justified its request by stating that all information Google provides in its search results originates from other websites. And Google itself has collected the information for its search engine from other sources, without ever asking if it itself infringes copyrights by displaying website content in its service.
Now the court has sided with SerpApi and dismissed Google's lawsuit. According to the court, Google's search results do not meet the threshold of originality, meaning copyright does not protect them in any way.
The lawsuit is not yet completely over, as Google has the opportunity to clarify its claim for three weeks and prove that its lawsuit protects the copyrights of the original sources - i.e., websites - rather than its own (which, according to the court, it does not have for the search results).
