BrightData Opposes Motion to Dismiss Copyright Case
BrightData opposed X Corp’s motion to dismiss the data-scraping company's counterclaims in a copyright case Tuesday at the U.S. District Court of Northern California. BrightData alleged that the social media platform’s attempts to remove rights of the public to access and scrape public portions of the web are anticompetitive conduct.
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“Scrapers are independent sources of competition so far as the Sherman Act is concerned,” BrightData said. “Here, scrapers have independent rights to scrape the public web.”
In case 23-03698, X alleged that Bright Data extracted and copied public data from it and sells tools that help others do the same. X asserted breach-of-contract and sought to bar Bright Data from scraping data (see 2501130064). On Jan. 14, attorneys for X submitted a motion to dismiss the data scraper's counterclaims. X said Bright Data claims a “God Given right” under the antitrust laws to access X’s platform for free and siphon away and sell the data it hosts,” though “no such right exists.”
A hearing on X’s motion to dismiss is scheduled for March 13 before Judge William Alsup.