President Donald Trump fired the director of the U.S. Copyright Office, Shira Perlmutter, on Sunday.
The White House notified Perlmutter in an email, according to the Associated Press, writing, “Your position as the Register of Copyrights and Director at the U.S. Copyright Office is terminated effective immediately.” Hayden was also notified via email.
On the copyright office website, Perlmutter is still listed as its director. The position oversees six directorates and 450 staff members at the agency.
Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Administration Committee, blamed Perlmutter’s firing on her recent report on using copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence systems. According to Perlmutter, such a practice “would undermine rather than further the constitutional goals of copyright.”
“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,” Morelle wrote in a statement. “Register Perlmutter is a patriot, and her tenure has propelled the Copyright Office into the 21st century by comprehensively modernizing its operations and setting global standards on the intersection of AI and intellectual property.”
“This action once again tramples on Congress’s Article One authority and throws a trillion-dollar industry into chaos. When will my Republican colleagues decide enough is enough?” Morelle wrote.
The union behind Canadian and American musicians also issued a statement lamenting Perlmutter’s firing.
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“Shira Perlmutter has served the American people with unrivaled expertise for decades. Her unlawful firing will gravely harm the entire copyright community,” the American Federation of Musicians wrote. “She understood what we all know to be true: human creativity and authorship are the foundation of copyright law — and for that, it appears, she lost her job. On behalf of musicians across the United States and Canada, we thank Register Perlmutter for her service.”
Perlmutter previously worked as a policy director at the Patent and Trademark Office.
