US President Donald Trump has removed Shira Perlmutter, head of the US Copyright Office, in a move critics say was politically motivated and legally dubious.
Perlmutter, appointed in 2020 during Trump’s first term, was dismissed days after declining to support Elon Musk’s efforts to use copyrighted material for training artificial intelligence models.
Representative Joe Morelle, ranking member of the House Administration Committee, called it “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,” Morelle said in a statement.
Perlmutter had led a recent Copyright Office report warning against overreliance on “fair use” as a defence for training AI on copyrighted data.
The report, which is part of an ongoing review, says exceptions may apply to research, but commercial use is far more limited.
Trump acknowledged the dismissal on his Truth Social platform, reposting a link to the news and amplifying commentary from attorney Mike Davis — who appeared to criticise the firing as aiding “tech bros” in stripping creators of rights.
Photo: Donald Trump truth social
The firing follows Trump’s removal of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, who had appointed Perlmutter to her post.
Critics see the firings as a coordinated attempt to shift copyright policy in favour of AI and technology firms, many of which have pushed to loosen intellectual property constraints for training data.
The Copyright Office says that while it’s “not possible to prejudge” the outcome of individual cases, there are limitations on how much AI companies can count on “fair use” as a defense when they train their models on copyrighted content.
For example, the report says research and analysis would probably be allowed.
“But 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,” it continues.
The Copyright Office states that government action “would be premature at this time,” but encourages the continued development of “licensing markets” where AI developers compensate rights holders for access to their work.
It also recommends exploring “alternative approaches,” such as extended collective licensing, to address potential market gaps.
Several AI firms, including OpenAI, are currently facing lawsuits alleging copyright infringement. OpenAI has urged the US government to establish a formal policy framework that supports broader fair use rights for AI development.
Elon Musk, who co-founded OpenAI and now leads rival startup xAI (which is merging with the platform formerly known as Twitter), recently backed Jack Dorsey’s controversial proposal to eliminate all intellectual property laws.
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