By Shashank Nayar
Publication Date: 2026-07-31 17:40:00
Federal court clears Reddit to advance anti-circumvention claims against Perplexity AI and SerpApi, even as the platform navigates Google search traffic fluctuations following robust Q2 2026 earnings.
- A federal judge permitted Reddit’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) anti-circumvention claims to proceed against AI search startup Perplexity and scraping firm SerpApi.
- Reddit posted strong Q2 2026 financial results, generating $805 million in revenue and earnings of $1.25, while expanding daily active users to 130.3 million.
- Despite strong financials, Reddit stock experienced after-hours pressure after management warned of “choppy” Google search referral traffic influenced by Google’s evolving AI search features.
Reddit Inc. (RDDT) has secured a major procedural victory in its legal battle against unauthorized artificial intelligence data harvesting, after a federal judge denied motions to dismiss key claims alleging that AI platform Perplexity AI and web-scraping vendor SerpApi illegally bypassed technical safeguards to scrape community content.
The ruling allows Reddit to advance its claims under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which prohibits the circumvention of technological measures designed to control access to copyrighted works.
According to court filings, Reddit alleges that Perplexity AI and SerpApi systematically evaded the platform’s security protocols. Reddit states that the companies extracted proprietary content without…
