United States of America: Issued ruling in lawsuit alleging copyright violations concerning data scraping (X Corp v Bright Data Ltd)

On 9 May 2024, the Northern District Court of California issued a ruling in a civil lawsuit (3:23-cv-03698) alleging copyright infringement. The lawsuit was brought by X Corp. against Bright Data Ltd, an Israeli data scraping company. The court found that Bright Data Ltd. did not violate X Corp.'s user agreement by scraping data and circumventing anti-scraping technology. The ruling emphasised that the use of scraping tools is not inherently deceptive and emphasised the importance of public access to information, rejecting the notion that social media companies could claim de facto copyright ownership of user-generated content. The ruling dismissed X Corp.'s claims for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for breach of contract, trespass and misappropriation but left open the possibility of amending the complaint.