Ziff Davis v. OpenAI, opinion and order denying leave to amend (18 December 2025): robots.txt is not an access control (In re OpenAI, Inc. Copyright Infringement Litigation, No. 1:25-md-03143-SHS-OTW (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 18, 2025), Dkt. 983; Ziff Davis, Inc. v. OpenAI, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-04315, Dkt. 302)
A robots.txt file is a request, not a lock: ignoring it is not circumvention under the DMCA. It still records what the site owner asked for.
Dated 17 Oct 2026Source checked 17 Oct 2026Basis: primary text
In the source's own words
“If the bot creator does not take this affirmative step of choosing to heed the requests embodied in Ziff Davis's robots.txt files, the robots.txt files have no effect on the bot's ability to access Ziff Davis's works.”
Figures it counts in
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