Trump Fires Copyright Office Director Amid AI Training Report Concerns
In a move that has sent ripples through the legal and tech communities, President Donald Trump has terminated Shira Perlmutter from her position as the Director of the U.S. Copyright Office. The dismissal follows the release of a U.S. Copyright Office report addressing the complex intersection of copyright law and artificial intelligence training.
News of Perlmutter’s firing was first reported by CBS News and Politico. Representative Joe Morelle, the leading Democrat on the Committee on House Administration, issued a statement further confirming the news and expressing strong disapproval.
Morelle characterized Trump’s action as “a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis.” He further suggested a potential connection between the firing and Perlmutter’s stance on the use of copyrighted material for AI training, stating it was “surely no coincidence he acted less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”
Shira Perlmutter assumed leadership of the Copyright Office in 2020. Notably, Trump also fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden this week, who initially appointed Perlmutter.
Trump seemingly acknowledged the firing on Truth Social by “ReTruthing” a post from attorney Mike Davis linking to the CBS News article. Davis’s post, however, voiced concerns that the firing could lead to the exploitation of creators’ copyrights for AI-related profits.
The controversy is intertwined with the ongoing debate surrounding AI companies utilizing copyrighted works to train their models. Morelle highlighted a recent U.S. Copyright Office report that delves into copyright and AI, specifically addressing the applicability of “fair use” in the context of AI training.
The report clarifies that while certain uses, such as research and analysis, may fall under fair use, the “commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets” likely exceeds established fair use boundaries, especially when access is obtained illegally.
The Copyright Office acknowledged that government intervention might be premature but hopes that licensing markets will develop where AI companies compensate copyright holders for content usage. Alternative approaches such as extended collective licensing should be considered to address any market failure.
Several AI companies, including OpenAI, are currently facing copyright infringement lawsuits. OpenAI has advocated for the U.S. government to establish a copyright strategy that allows AI companies greater leeway under the umbrella of fair use for AI training.
Elon Musk, who co-founded OpenAI and now leads xAI (set to merge with X), has previously voiced support for eliminating all intellectual property law. This position further complicates the debate, given Musk’s involvement in both AI development and content creation platforms.
