President Donald Trump fired the chief of the U.S. Copyright Office days after the release of a landmark report that stood to hobble artificial intelligence companies’ ability to train their models on material without the creator’s permission.
Shira Perlmutter, who became director of the Copyright Office in 2020, was reportedly terminated by email. She was appointed to that role by Carla Hayden, who herself was fired by Trump as Librarian of Congress last week.
Acting Librarian of Congress Robert Newlen informed staff in an email that Perlmutter was fired by the White House on Saturday, according to The Washington Post. The termination reportedly stoked fears among employees that they could be next.
The Copyright Office released last week the third part of its landmark report, which focused on questions surrounding generative AI training and fair use.
“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 agency wrote.
Rep. Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the Committee on House Administration, speculated in a statement that “it is surely no coincidence” that Trump fired Perlmutter “less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”
I agree
— gorklon rust (@elonmusk) April 11, 2025
Last month, Musk wrote on X that he agreed with calls to abolish intellectual property law. The tech mogul owns the AI startup xAI and tried unsuccessfully in February to purchase OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.
“Donald Trump’s termination of Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, is a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis,” Morelle said. “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?”
The American Federation of Musicians similarly blasted the termination of Perlmutter.
Statement on the reported Firing of Register of Copyrights Perlmutter: Shira Perlmutter has served the American people with unrivaled expertise for decades. Her unlawful firing will gravely harm the entire copyright community. She understood what we all know to be true: human… pic.twitter.com/ZLSiUfZ2Kf
— AFM (@The_AFM) May 11, 2025
“Her unlawful firing will gravely harm the entire copyright community,” it said in a statement. “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.”
Last week, Trump fired Hayden, the first woman and first Black person to lead the Library of Congress. No reason was given for her termination, though the conservative group American Accountability Foundation branded her “woke” and “anti-Trump.”
“It’s time to get her OUT and hire a new guy for the job!” the group wrote on X hours before Hayden’s firing was announced.
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