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Reddit Inc. Secures Procedural Victory in Copyright Lawsuit Against Perplexity AI and SerpApi

Reddit Inc. successfully defended its copyright lawsuit against AI search startup Perplexity AI and web-scraping firm SerpApi after a federal judge denied motions to dismiss key claims. US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer ruled that Reddit Inc. plausibly argued that the defendants conspired to illegally bypass technical safeguards to harvest community content. The ruling allows Reddit Inc. to proceed with its claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which protects against the circumvention of technological measures designed to control access to copyrighted works. Reddit Inc. argues that the unauthorized scraping by Perplexity AI and SerpApi allegedly harms its reputation and profits by allowing deleted posts to persist in AI answer engines. The company reported strong Q2 2026 financial results, generating $805 million in revenue and $1.25 earnings per share. However, Reddit Inc. stock experienced a 22% drop on Friday following management's warnings of volatile search-engine traffic. The victory marks a significant precedent for digital publishing, potentially forcing AI developers to enter into official licensing agreements to monetize human discussions.

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