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Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped

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Re: Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped

#41
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.

Re: Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped

#42
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to imagine how the world would be different, if internet advertising giants were partially liable for scams/malware that they facilitate.

I recall a articale I read "somewhere" that reported the Facebook makes big profit (Billions) from scams. So they have no ( or no strong motive) motive to shut such scams down An example is courtcase against Meta for using a Australians mining billionares likeness to promote a crypo investment scam. https://www.afr.com/technology/dad-it-s-a-fraud-call-that-sp...

I'm surprised legitimate companies don't pressure Facebook on this though. There are enough scams on Facebook that I now refuse to believe anything there, even though some of the things look useful and probably are not scams (and also are things I didn't know existed without an ad - thus filling one of the legitimate values of advertisements: informing me of things that would make my life better but I don't know exist).

Re: Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me tell you about this new little-known technology that's been gaining traction in the last few years...

Sure, go ahead and ask the LLM who won the 2026 World Cup. Or nearby BBQ places open now. Even assuming no hallucinations, an LLM can replace some use cases for search but not all.

I tried both and it’s not even close which interface is better when it comes to answering a question. Google gives you stuff to sift through and interpret. AI just gives the answer.

Imagine you’re in the car or hands free or disabled and you just want the question answered.

https://ibb.co/whYmZWxs

https://ibb.co/JFkQbmJf

Re: Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me tell you about this new little-known technology that's been gaining traction in the last few years...

Sure, go ahead and ask the LLM who won the 2026 World Cup. Or nearby BBQ places open now. Even assuming no hallucinations, an LLM can replace some use cases for search but not all.

Whether it's a good choice or not sadly doesn't change the current reality. People now use ChatGPT as a replacement for google.

Re: Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped

#45
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to imagine how the world would be different, if internet advertising giants were partially liable for scams/malware that they facilitate.

I recall a articale I read "somewhere" that reported the Facebook makes big profit (Billions) from scams. So they have no ( or no strong motive) motive to shut such scams down An example is courtcase against Meta for using a Australians mining billionares likeness to promote a crypo investment scam. https://www.afr.com/technology/dad-it-s-a-fraud-call-that-sp...

Your first assertion is obviously untrue. And fake celebrity endorsements pre-date the existence of the Internet, let alone Meta. There were lawsuits back in the 1800s on this topic. This is hardly a new problem unique to Meta.

Re: Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, then need to bring back Nelson Minar’s old search API, or something like it. Google does supply search grounding with Gemini API calls, and that is handy, but not general enough.

Last time I looked into this (about a month ago), there's a lot of restrictions on the use of Gemini's search grounding results. There's not even an easy or approved way to de-mangle their returned URL's to get to the real URL of the search results. Has that changed recently?

I haven't used it but they were silly about their programmatic search api in the same way. Can't use the results for anything other than showing them as-is on a results page.

Re: Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped

#47
post #19
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google search is on the way out. I don't know any of my peers who use it anymore. What do they use? Of all my tech friends, colleagues, I'm the only one who uses Kagi. Another person uses searx. Everyone else uses Google. Of my non-tech friends and colleagues, everyone uses Google.

> Of my non-tech friends and colleagues, everyone uses Google. Me, almost, too. I have some friends using duckduckgo - not many and only until Google is the default again...

I've been using DDG for at least 3 years. Very rarely use Google anymore, and when I do it is when DDG doesn't find much and in those cases Google usually isn't any better.

Re: Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped

#48
> 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.

Re: Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me tell you about this new little-known technology that's been gaining traction in the last few years...

Sure, go ahead and ask the LLM who won the 2026 World Cup. Or nearby BBQ places open now. Even assuming no hallucinations, an LLM can replace some use cases for search but not all.

Claude Sonnet 5 Medium more or less on the timestamp of the comment:

Prompt: Who won the 2026 World Cup?

Answer: Spain won the 2026 World Cup, beating Argentina 1-0 after extra time in the final at MetLife Stadium on July 19. Ferran Torres scored the only goal in the 106th minute, coming on as a substitute in the 62nd minute. It’s Spain’s second World Cup title, having also won in 2010.

Prompt: Nearby BBQ places open now?

Answer: (a geolocation permission request prompt for the browser followed by) Right in [redacted] both [redacted] (4.6 stars, open until [redacted]) and [redacted] ([redacted]) are close and currently open.

A bit further out but highly rated: [redacted]

Seems like LLM does a good job on those questions…

Re: Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, go ahead and ask the LLM who won the 2026 World Cup. Or nearby BBQ places open now. Even assuming no hallucinations, an LLM can replace some use cases for search but not all.

I tried both and it’s not even close which interface is better when it comes to answering a question. Google gives you stuff to sift through and interpret. AI just gives the answer. Imagine you’re in the car or hands free or disabled and you just want the question answered. https://ibb.co/whYmZWxs https://ibb.co/JFkQbmJf

"just gives you the answer" is a problem when it is offered without context, sourcing, etc.

Such is the case for people trying to poison--ahem "influence" LLM results for "what is the best restaurant in $my_locale". You're playing a dangerous game.

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