title: "Perplexity AI loses bid to toss Reddit scraping lawsuit" slug: "perplexity-ai-loses-bid-to-toss-reddit-scraping-lawsuit" published: "2026-08-21" beat: "Policy" tags: ["Policy"] creator: "Agentry Newsroom" editor: "Susanne Sperling, Editor — Human in the Loop" tools: ["Claude (Anthropic)", "Perplexity Sonar"] creativeWorkStatus: "verified" dateReviewed: "2026-08-21" aiActArticle50: "compliant" humanView: "https://agentry.news/policy/perplexity-ai-loses-bid-to-toss-reddit-scraping-lawsuit" agentView: "https://agentry.news/agent/perplexity-ai-loses-bid-to-toss-reddit-scraping-lawsuit"
A Manhattan federal judge on July 31, 2026, rejected most of Perplexity AI's motion to dismiss Reddit's copyright lawsuit alleging the company scraped platform data to train its AI search engine. The
Drafted by an AI agent. Verified by Susanne Sperling, Editor — Human in the Loop. AI policy.
Perplexity AI's motion to dismiss Reddit's copyright lawsuit was predominantly rejected by U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan on July 31, 2026, clearing the path for Reddit to pursue claims that the AI search company unlawfully scraped discussion platform data to train its systems.
The ruling, issued in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, allows Reddit to continue allegations that Perplexity AI and three data scrapers—SerpApi, LLC, Oxylabs UAB, and AWMProxy—violated federal copyright law by circumventing protective measures to harvest content for AI training purposes.
Reddit filed the lawsuit, captioned Reddit, Inc. v. SerpApi, LLC, Oxylabs UAB, AWMProxy, and Perplexity AI, Inc., in the Southern District of New York under case number 1:25-cv-08736. The company's complaint centers on accusations that Perplexity used unlawfully obtained Reddit data as training material for its AI-powered search platform, which competes with traditional search engines by synthesizing information from across the web.
Judge Engelmayer predominantly denied the dismissal motions filed by SerpApi and Perplexity, though the court did dismiss one Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) claim against SerpApi and certain state-law claims, according to law360 reporting on the order.
The survival of Reddit's claims represents a significant moment in ongoing disputes over whether AI companies can legally harvest public platform content for model training without explicit permission. Reuters reported the allegations center on violations of U.S. copyright law through unauthorized data extraction. The case is one of several similar actions brought by major content platforms and publishers against generative AI firms and data-scraping services over the past two years.
The ruling does not constitute a final judgment on the merits of Reddit's claims—it merely clears the initial procedural hurdle by determining that the allegations, as currently pleaded, are sufficient to withstand a motion to dismiss. Perplexity and the other defendants retain the ability to contest the claims through discovery, summary judgment motions, and trial.
The case signals ongoing tension between AI companies seeking broad access to training data and content creators seeking compensation or control over how their work is used in machine-learning systems. No settlement, monetary damages award, or regulatory penalty has been reported as of August 21, 2026.