Birbla

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Hacker News

DMCA needs to be reformed one day.

by dmix

I am somewhat confused - does this mean we can all now legally scrape Google search results?

by thisislife2

the company that built its empire by indexing every page on the internet without asking is now suing people for reading its pages without asking

by luciana1u

EU protects a database creator if there has been a qualitative or quantitative "substantial investment" in obtaining, verifying, or presenting the content, regardless of creative expression.

In USA copyright requires a minimum degree of original creativity in the selection, coordination, or arrangement of the data.

I think it's a rather grey line to say that Google search results are just facts, but eg maps are copyrightable. There's a rather large amount of effort involved in crawling and ranking the web - the PageRank itself should be copyrightable.

by akrymski

The irony is that Google's success was built on crawling and indexing the open web. I understand wanting to protect your product, but once you remove affordable APIs and then object to third parties filling that gap, you're creating demand for the very behavior you're trying to discourage

by 1saadcodes

> The whole thing was just “we don’t like that this is happening, so we’re suing.”

Typical behavior from a big company with immense resources. They probably thought they would get a settlement or SerpAPI could not afford to fight. I assume they are pretty small, at least in comparison to Google (I've never heard of them).

Google has so much money that even a "loser pays" requirement on litigation probably would not disuade them.

by SoftTalker

I'd be more OK with this if Google had a good API for their search results. But they've deprecated it, and now there is no alternative. So I'll continue to use 3rd parties that scrape Google results, until they change their mind.

by binarymax

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  • Hacker News
  • DMCA needs to be reformed one day.
    by dmix
  • I am somewhat confused - does this mean we can all now legally scrape Google search results?
    by thisislife2
  • the company that built its empire by indexing every page on the internet without asking is now suing people for reading its pages without asking
    by luciana1u
  • It's quite important that SERPs are scrapeable, because they keep advertising scams like ETA/ESTA sites: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56886957
    by jonatron
  • EU protects a database creator if there has been a qualitative or quantitative "substantial investment" in obtaining, verifying, or presenting the content, regardless of creative expression.

    In USA copyright requires a minimum degree of original creativity in the selection, coordination, or arrangement of the data.

    I think it's a rather grey line to say that Google search results are just facts, but eg maps are copyrightable. There's a rather large amount of effort involved in crawling and ranking the web - the PageRank itself should be copyrightable.

    by akrymski
  • The irony is that Google's success was built on crawling and indexing the open web. I understand wanting to protect your product, but once you remove affordable APIs and then object to third parties filling that gap, you're creating demand for the very behavior you're trying to discourage
    by 1saadcodes
  • > The whole thing was just “we don’t like that this is happening, so we’re suing.”

    Typical behavior from a big company with immense resources. They probably thought they would get a settlement or SerpAPI could not afford to fight. I assume they are pretty small, at least in comparison to Google (I've never heard of them).

    Google has so much money that even a "loser pays" requirement on litigation probably would not disuade them.

    by SoftTalker
  • I'd be more OK with this if Google had a good API for their search results. But they've deprecated it, and now there is no alternative. So I'll continue to use 3rd parties that scrape Google results, until they change their mind.
    by binarymax