SerpApi this week filed a renewed movement to dismiss Reddit’s amended lawsuit in the US District Court docket for the Southern District of New York, asking Decide Paul Adam Engelmayer to throw out the case with prejudice. The submitting – Doc 59 in Case No. 25-cv-8736 – represents the Austin, Texas-based firm’s second try to finish litigation that has grown steadily extra complicated since Reddit first filed go well with on October 22, 2025.

The core argument is easy, even when the authorized terrain isn’t. Reddit, based on SerpApi’s legal professionals at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, doesn’t personal the content material it’s attempting to guard. Its personal person settlement states that Redditors retain possession of their posts, leaving Reddit with solely a non-exclusive license. That distinction, based on the 34-page memorandum of legislation, is deadly to each depend within the amended criticism.

What Reddit really sued over

Reddit’s criticism, filed on October 22, 2025 and later amended on February 6, 2026, names 4 defendants: SerpApi LLC, Oxylabs UAB, AWMProxy, and Perplexity AI, Inc. The speculation is that these corporations bypassed technological controls to reap Reddit content material from Google search engine outcomes pages (SERPs), thereby circumventing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention provisions below 17 U.S.C. § 1201.

Reddit by no means alleged that SerpApi accessed Reddit’s personal servers. The criticism is express: SerpApi accessed Google’s publicly out there SERPs. Based on subpoena knowledge Reddit obtained from Google, throughout a two-week interval in July 2025, SerpApi alone accessed 784,006,306 SERPs containing Reddit knowledge between July 1-6, and 1,057,744,585 between July 7-13. Oxylabs and AWMProxy added one other 1.26 billion accesses throughout the identical interval. These numbers are massive. Whether or not they represent a authorized unsuitable is the query now earlier than the court docket.

SerpApi’s renewed problem

SerpApi filed its first movement to dismiss on January 2, 2026, after the court docket prolonged the corporate’s deadline from December 22, 2025. Reddit responded by submitting a First Amended Grievance on February 6, 2026, including new allegations designed to handle the weaknesses SerpApi had recognized. The court docket set March 13, 2026 because the deadline for SerpApi and Perplexity to reply to the amended criticism. SerpApi met that deadline in the present day.

The renewed movement raises seven distinct grounds for dismissal. Every is grounded within the argument that Reddit has stretched the DMCA effectively past its supposed scope.

Standing: the edge drawback

The primary and most structurally vital argument considerations Article III standing – the constitutional requirement {that a} plaintiff reveal a concrete, particularized harm pretty traceable to the defendant’s conduct. SerpApi argues Reddit has not met that bar.

Reddit claims three classes of harm. First, reputational hurt and lack of person belief arising from its lack of ability to regulate user-generated content material. Second, misplaced licensing income that it will allegedly have earned from AI corporations. Third, prices incurred constructing and sustaining anti-scraping infrastructure. Based on the submitting, every fails.

On the reputational hurt declare, the movement notes that Reddit’s personal Privateness Coverage, up to date on January 6, 2026, tells customers their content material “may additionally be out there in search outcomes on web engines like google like Google or in responses offered by an AI chatbot.” Reddit can not plausibly declare harm from customers discovering their posts seem in Google outcomes when Reddit’s personal insurance policies disclose that end result. The submitting cites the Supreme Court docket’s 2013 ruling in Clapper v. Amnesty Worldwide for the proposition {that a} social gathering can not manufacture standing by voluntarily spending cash to protect in opposition to speculative future hurt.

On misplaced licensing income, the argument is that Reddit identifies no particular business alternative that SerpApi’s conduct really foreclosed. The reference to Google’s lawsuit as proof of diminished licensing worth is, the movement argues, inapposite – Google was describing its relationship with its personal customers, not with Reddit.

Even when Reddit had constitutional standing, the movement argues it lacks statutory standing below 17 U.S.C. § 1203(a), which allows go well with by “[a]ny individual injured by a violation of part 1201 or 1202.” The DMCA’s zone of pursuits, the submitting contends, extends solely to copyright house owners. Reddit isn’t the copyright proprietor of user-generated content material. It holds a non-exclusive license. That may be a elementary distinction in copyright legislation: a non-exclusive licensee “could not sue others for infringement,” citing the Second Circuit’s 2018 ruling in John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. DRK Picture.

No court docket has prolonged DMCA standing to a plaintiff in Reddit’s place. The 2023 VidAngel LLC v. ClearPlay, Inc.ruling from the District of Utah was express: the court docket was “not conscious of any instances extending the reason for motion in Part 1203 past copyright house owners and house owners of an entry management measure.” Reddit doesn’t personal the entry management measure both – that’s Google’s SearchGuard system. Reddit is, within the submitting’s framing, making an attempt to implement another person’s rights over another person’s expertise to guard content material it doesn’t personal.

Reddit’s February 6 amended criticism tried to remedy this by claiming it authored sure minimal content material that appeared in Google SERPs, together with a boilerplate coverage discover and a date stamp. The movement addresses every of the 4 instance snippets Reddit cited. One is a partial coverage assertion about personal messages. One other is an inventory of film titles from a person remark – “Inception, LotR trilogy, Fifth Component, The Princess bride, Blues Brothers, Mouse Hunt.” A 3rd consists of a date, “Might 17, 2024,” and a truncated fragment. The fourth is a brief description of a jazz membership handle. None of those, the movement argues, meets the edge for copyright safety. Brief phrases, lists of titles, factual addresses, and dates will not be copyrightable below established legislation. And not using a copyrightable work, there might be no DMCA violation.

The “efficient entry management” drawback

A separate technical argument targets the character of Google’s SearchGuard system. The DMCA protects solely technological measures that successfully management entry to a protected work. Courts have persistently required that such measures really forestall entry – functioning like a locked door requiring a key.

Reddit’s amended criticism concedes the purpose in its personal language. SearchGuard, based on Reddit’s submitting, permits human customers to entry Google SERPs “seamlessly” and “with out disrupting the person expertise.” In SerpApi’s telling, that admission is dispositive. A measure that leaves one route of entry completely open can not qualify as an “efficient” entry management below Part 1201. The Sixth Circuit’s Lexmark ruling put it plainly: “simply as one wouldn’t say {that a} lock on the again door of a home controls entry to a home whose entrance door doesn’t comprise a lock, it doesn’t make sense to say that the DMCA applies to otherwise-readily-accessible copyrighted works.”

SerpApi’s conduct, on this framing, entails “mimicking human conduct” to retrieve the identical search outcomes that any individual with a browser can entry with out authorization. That’s not circumvention because the DMCA defines it – which covers acts like decryption, descrambling, or bypassing password safety.

The broader stakes for AI knowledge markets

The litigation sits on the intersection of two unresolved tensions in digital markets: how platforms can management content material they don’t personal, and the way copyright legislation applies to publicly accessible data assembled from third-party sources.

PPC Land’s earlier coverage of the original complaint positioned the case in context: Reddit has entered paid knowledge licensing agreements with corporations together with Google and OpenAI, and views unauthorized scraping as an existential risk to that income stream. Reddit’s S-1 registration assertion, filed on February 22, 2024, described its knowledge corpus as useful exactly as a result of it gives “real-time entry to evolving and dynamic matters.” The platform has additionally sued Anthropic in a separate case filed on June 4, 2025, in San Francisco Superior Court docket for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and unfair competitors.

The parallel authorized battle between Google and SerpApi – filed within the Northern District of California on December 19, 2025 – raises similar questions on whether or not bot-detection methods qualify as DMCA-protected entry controls. SerpApi filed its movement to dismiss in that case on February 20, 2026, and a listening to is scheduled for Might 19, 2026.

SerpApi’s general counsel Chad Anson responded publicly to the Google case in January, framing the dispute as a conflict over whether or not platforms can use copyright legislation to wall off publicly seen data. The Reddit movement in the present day extends that argument: if Reddit’s concept is accepted, any platform may invoke DMCA protections over user-generated content material it doesn’t personal, successfully privatising data posted by hundreds of thousands of individuals with out their information or consent.

SerpApi, based in 2017 in Austin, Texas by CEO Julien Khaleghy, lists purchasers together with the United Nations, Morgan Stanley, KPMG, and Shopify. The corporate markets a Google Search API that enables builders to retrieve structured knowledge from SERPs programmatically, operating, based on its web site, greater than 100,000 searches per hour. Its “Ludicrous Pace Max” function makes use of, in its personal description, “4x the server sources to mechanically create quite a few parallel requests.”

The competitors and conspiracy claims

Past the DMCA counts, Reddit’s amended criticism included claims for unfair competitors, unjust enrichment, and civil conspiracy. The movement addresses every. On unfair competitors, SerpApi argues the declare is preempted by the Copyright Act and, in any occasion, that SerpApi and Reddit don’t compete with one another – Reddit hosts neighborhood dialogue, SerpApi retrieves structured knowledge from engines like google. On unjust enrichment, the movement argues the declare is preempted, duplicative of the DMCA counts, and fails to establish any particular or direct profit conferred on SerpApi. On civil conspiracy, the movement notes that civil conspiracy isn’t an impartial tort below New York legislation; it requires an underlying tortious act, and if the DMCA claims fail, the conspiracy declare falls with them.

Why dismissal with prejudice

SerpApi isn’t just asking the court docket to dismiss the case – it’s asking for dismissal with prejudice, that means Reddit could be barred from amending its criticism a 3rd time. The argument is that Reddit has already had one alternative to handle the deficiencies recognized within the January 2026 movement, and failed. Permitting an extra modification would require SerpApi to spend extra sources transferring to dismiss a 3rd time. Courts have granted dismissal with prejudice in related circumstances below Second Circuit precedent.

The case is assigned to Decide Paul Adam Engelmayer and Justice of the Peace Decide Barbara C. Moses. As of March 13, 2026, not all defendants have been served: AWMProxy and Oxylabs had not but responded to the amended criticism, with solely SerpApi and Perplexity assembly the March 13 deadline for his or her responses.

Timeline

  • February 22, 2024 – Reddit and Google announce an information licensing partnership enabling programmatic entry to Reddit content material to be used in Google’s merchandise
  • Might 2024 – Reddit sends a cease-and-desist letter to Perplexity AI over unauthorized use of Reddit knowledge
  • September 14, 2025 – Google eliminates the num=100 SERP parameter, considerably affecting how knowledge instruments entry search outcomes (PPC Land)
  • October 22, 2025 – Reddit recordsdata lawsuit in opposition to SerpApi, Oxylabs, AWMProxy, and Perplexity AI within the Southern District of New York, Case No. 25-cv-8736 (PPC Land)
  • October 23, 2025 – Case assigned to Decide Paul A. Engelmayer; Justice of the Peace Decide Barbara C. Moses additionally designated
  • November 5-6, 2025 – SerpApi enters look by means of Weil, Gotshal & Manges; court docket extends SerpApi’s response deadline to December 22, 2025
  • December 19, 2025 – Google individually recordsdata a DMCA lawsuit in opposition to SerpApi within the Northern District of California (PPC Land)
  • January 2, 2026 – SerpApi and Perplexity each file motions to dismiss Reddit’s authentic criticism; court docket orders Reddit to amend by January 23, 2026
  • January 12, 2026 – Court docket extends Reddit’s modification deadline to February 6, 2026
  • January 23, 2026 – SerpApi Basic Counsel Chad Anson publishes public response to Google’s lawsuit (PPC Land)
  • February 6, 2026 – Reddit recordsdata its First Amended Grievance in opposition to all 4 defendants; court docket units March 13, 2026 as the brand new response deadline
  • February 20, 2026 – SerpApi recordsdata movement to dismiss within the Google case within the Northern District of California (PPC Land)
  • March 13, 2026 – SerpApi recordsdata Doc 59, its renewed movement to dismiss Reddit’s amended criticism with prejudice, within the Southern District of New York

Abstract

Who: SerpApi LLC, an Austin, Texas-based search API firm based in 2017, is the defendant that in the present day filed a renewed movement to dismiss in Case No. 25-cv-8736. Reddit, Inc., a San Francisco-based social media platform with over 100 million day by day lively customers, is the plaintiff. Co-defendants Oxylabs UAB, AWMProxy, and Perplexity AI, Inc. are additionally named within the underlying amended criticism.

What: SerpApi in the present day filed a 34-page memorandum of legislation asking the Southern District of New York to dismiss Reddit’s First Amended Grievance with prejudice. The movement argues that Reddit lacks each constitutional and statutory standing to carry DMCA claims over content material it doesn’t personal, that Google’s SearchGuard system doesn’t qualify as an efficient entry management below the statute, that the content material snippets at difficulty will not be copyrightable, and that every one of Reddit’s non-DMCA state legislation claims are preempted by federal copyright legislation.

When: The movement was filed in the present day, March 13, 2026. The underlying lawsuit was initially filed on October 22, 2025. Reddit filed its amended criticism on February 6, 2026.

The place: The case is earlier than the US District Court docket for the Southern District of New York, assigned to Decide Paul Adam Engelmayer. SerpApi relies in Austin, Texas at 5540 N. Lamar Blvd. Reddit is headquartered in San Francisco with places of work at One World Commerce Heart in New York.

Why: The case issues as a result of Reddit is making an attempt to make use of the DMCA – a statute designed to stop decryption and piracy of copyrighted works – to regulate entry to publicly seen user-generated content material that Reddit doesn’t personal. SerpApi argues that accepting Reddit’s concept would enable any platform to weaponise copyright legislation to dam entry to public data posted by hundreds of thousands of customers, with direct penalties for the way AI corporations, researchers, and advertising and marketing instruments entry and use publicly out there knowledge from engines like google.


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