The DMCA Was Built to Stop DVD Piracy. Google Wants to Use It Against Scrapers
substack.thewebscraping.club If Google’s legal theory prevails ... every CAPTCHA, every JavaScript
challenge, every behavioral analysis system deployed on a public website
could potentially become a “technological protection measure” under
Section 1201. Any scraper that solves a CAPTCHA, executes JavaScript
to render a page, or rotates IP addresses to avoid detection could be
committing a federal offense.The whole dmca that bans user from circumventing enceyption shouldn't even exist and it's a great example of lobbying going horribly wrong and media companies having too much money
After hiQ v. LinkedIn gutted the CFAA for public web data, Google needed a new theory. If courts accept that CAPTCHAs are "technological protection measures" under copyright law, every website with a bot check just gained federal enforcement power against scraping. Built by a company that literally indexed the web for a living..
Good. Scrapping for AI training is evil. Websites are meant for humans.
Don't worry. Google has the training data already; they just don't want others to get it.