A federal judge in California dismissed a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s X against Israel’s Bright Data, in a case that involved the scraping of public online data and its appropriate uses, CNBC reported.
X, formerly Twitter, sued Bright Data, alleging the company “scrapes data from X” and sells it “using elaborate technical measures to evade X Corp.’s anti-scraping technology.” X also claimed the company violated its terms of service and copyright.
In dismissing the complaint, Judge William Alsup wrote, “X Corp. wants it both ways: to keep its safe harbors yet exercise a copyright owner’s right to exclude, wresting fees from those who wish to extract and copy X users’ content.”
Giving social networks complete control over the collection and use of public data “risks the possible creation of information monopolies that would disserve the public interest,” the judge wrote. He added that X was not “looking to protect X users’ privacy,” and was “happy to allow the extraction and copying of X users’ so long as it gets paid.”
Reuters reported U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco ruled on Thursday that X, formerly Twitter, failed to plausibly allege that Bright Data Ltd had violated its user agreement by allowing the scraping and evading X’s own anti-scraping technology.
Alsup said using scraping tools is not inherently fraudulent, and giving social media companies free rein to decide how public data are used “risks the possible creation of information monopolies that would disserve the public interest.
The judge also said X was not entitled to “de facto copyright ownership” in copyrighted content that X’s user made available to the public.
Or Lenchner, Bright Data’s chief executive, said in a statement: “Bright Data’s victory over X makes it clear that the world of public information on the web belongs to all of us, and any attempt to deny the public access will fail.”
ArsTechnica reported a US district judge William Alsup has dismissed Elon Musk’s X Corp’s lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X (formerly Twitter) systems and selling data.
According to Alsup, X failed to state a claim while arguing that companies like Bright Data should have to pay X to access public data posted by X users.
“To the extent the claims are based on access to systems, they fail because X Corp. has alleged no more than threadbare recitals,” parroting laws and finding in other cases without providing any evidence, Alsup wrote. “To the extent the claims are based on scraping and selling of data, they fail because they are preempted by federal law,” specifically standing as an “obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of” the Copyright Act.
“X Corp. wants it both ways: to keep its safe harbors yet exercise a copyright owner’s right to exclude, wresting fees from those who wish to extract and copy X user’s content,” Alsup said.
In my opinion, it appears that Elon Musk wants to prevent other companies from scraping X’s user data, but also wants to be paid for that data. I see why the judge dismissed Mr. Musk’s complaint.