Two days after removing the Librarian of Congress, the White House fired the government's top copyright official. The US Copyright Office said Sunday that Shira Perlmutter received an email the day before saying her position "is terminated effective immediately," the AP reports. Perlmutter was appointed in 2020 by the now-ousted Carla Hayden; the Copyright Office has been overseen by Congress, per Politico. A House Democrat suggested it wasn't a coincidence that Perlmutter was removed immediately after releasing a report expressing concerns about AI technology's use of copyrighted materials. President Trump's ally Elon Musk is heavily involved in the field.
Rep. Joe Morelle, his party's top member of the House committee with oversight of both organizations, said Perlmutter "refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk's efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models." The Trump administration's action not only is an affront to Congress' authority, he added, it "throws a trillion-dollar industry into chaos." Musk, who owns an AI startup, appeared to endorse abolishing intellectual property laws last month on X, per CBS News. The Copyright Office's responsibilities include registering copyright claims, recording information about copyright ownership, and administering copyright law.
The newly released report is the third based on a review that began in 2023 and solicited opinions from thousands of people, including AI developers, actors, and country singers. In March, more than 400 members of the entertainment industry urged the White House to not curb coyright protections at the request of AI companies, per Variety. "Where that creativity is expressed through the use of AI systems, it continues to enjoy protection," Perlmutter said in January, per the AP. "Extending protection to material whose expressive elements are determined by a machine ... would undermine rather than further the constitutional goals of copyright." (British musicians released a silent album to protest a proposal for similar changes in the UK.)
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