The head of the US copyright office has been fired by President Trump just a few days after publishing a report that said AI often breaches copyright law.
Questions about the legality of AI in terms of copyright law are all too common, with some companies even admitting that they need access to copyrighted materials to train their models enough to be even remotely effectively.
One government official pointed that out in a recent report, and she’s been unceremoniously fired by the current administration.
Head of US Copyright Office Dismissed After AI Report
Over the weekend, the current administration reportedly fired Shira Perlmutter, the director of the US Copyright Office, who had been in the position since 2020.
The now-former director had very recently released a report, titled Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, that very casually mentions that AI could be in breach of current copyright laws as they stand.
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“Making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries.” – the report from Shira Perlmutter
Considering the timing of the firing and President Trump’s serious involvement in making AI more prolific in the US, it seems obvious that this is an attempt to clear the way for just that.
The Response to the Dismissal
As you can imagine, the response to this firing has not been very positive, with many pointing out that it’s a clear conflict of interests.
“Donald Trump’s termination of Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, is a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis. It is 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.” – Congressman Joe Morelle
The dismissal is particularly notable, given that it came just a few days after the Trump administration fired the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, who oversees the US copyright office.
Trump & AI
To say Trump wants AI to succeed in the US would be a dire understatement. The heads of big tech firms like Google, OpenAI, and Meta were prominently seated at his inauguration, he’s signed bills to bolster education around AI, and he’s reversed AI safety laws put in place by the previous administration.
“We have literally trillions of dollars being invested in AI. Somebody today, a very smart person, said that AI is the way to the future. I don’t know if that’s right or not, but certainly very smart people are investing in it.” – President Trump
It would seem that President Trump definitely does know if that’s right or not, as he’s taken steps to remove people from their positions that had the potential to slow down the evolution of the tech in the US.
