ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) - A corporate event planner claims a competitor used robot "Web scraping" computer programs to rip off its Web site and steal a valuable database of meeting venues around the world. Cvent demands $3 million, plus punitive damages, from Eventbrite, in Federal Court.
Cvent claims Eventbrite's Web scraping stole trade secrets that cost Cvent more than $10 million to develop. It claims Eventbrite used the robot programs repeatedly, for "systemic download and copying of Web sites."
Cvent, a software company, was founded in 1999.
From August to December 2008, Cvent says, Eventbrite copied and redistributed content from Cvent's Web site, "presenting the content on Eventbrite's Web site as Eventbrite's own, all with the purpose of harming Cvent's business and profiting from the stolen content."
It claims Eventbrite swiped its database for more than 60 cities around the world.
Cvent seeks an injunction, $3 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages, alleging copyright infringement, computer fraud and abuse, breach of its "terms of use" contract, conspiracy and unjust enrichment.
Cvent is represented by Paul Rauser with Aegis Law.
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