Legal Battle Over U.S. Copyright Chief Heats Up Again
After a June Supreme Court decision that extended the president's power over the federal workforce, the battle over the U.S. Copyright Office’s top official is back at the district court, even as the fate of a recently passed bill in the house adds another layer of uncertainty.
In a legal filing last week, Trump administration lawyers told a Washington D.C. court that a recent Supreme Court decision bolstered their case that President Trump has the power to fire Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter. But in a filing of their own, lawyers for Perlmutter reiterated that the president lacks such authority, arguing that, as an appeals court ruled last fall, the law gives that authority to expressly the U.S. Librarian of Congress.
The legal drama began last May, when Trump purportedly fired Perlmutter, just two days after the shock firing of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. The firing surprised and outraged stakeholders in the copyright and Intellectual Property communities, who have given Perlmutter high marks for her work at the office, including significant progress on a much-needed modernization effort.
Andrew Richard Albanese
Also of concern, Perlmutter’s attempted firing came immediately following the prepublication release of the Copyright Office’s third and final part of a wide-ranging AI review, which included opinions and analysis that appeared to clash with the president’s stated AI goals.
Later in May 2025, Perlmutter sued to keep her job. And after a winding legal road, the Washington D.C. U.S. Court of Appeals in September 2025 found that the president lacked the authority to fire Perlmutter, and ordered the administration not to obstruct Perlmutter from doing her job.
“The Librarian of Congress—not the President—is authorized by statute to appoint the Register,” the appeals court stated. Furthermore, in June of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the administration’s challenge of that decision, leaving the appeals court injunction in place, and Perlmutter in her role as Register while litigation over Trump’s attempted firing continues.
Also in June, however, another Supreme Court decision, Trump v. Slaughter—which involved the summary dismissal of Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic commissioner on the FTC—held that the president has broad discretion to fire employees that work for the executive branch. And, at the district court's direction, the parties were asked to weigh on the implications of that decision on Perlmutter's case.
In a July 31 brief, administration lawyers told the district court that the Slaughter decision gives the president the power to fire Perlmutter, because, despite serving as a subordinate of the Library of Congress, the Register of Copyrights performs some executive branch functions.
“Plaintiff Shira Perlmutter was lawfully removed from her former position as Register of Copyrights,” the filing states, arguing that the constitution gives the president the power to “directly remove the Register of Copyrights, an inferior officer wielding significant executive power,” and that the Slaughter decision confirmed “the President’s constitutional authority.”
But in a July 31 brief of their own, lawyers for Perlmutter told the court that the Slaughter ruling does not extend to Perlmutter.
"Ms. Perlmutter’s position as Register of Copyrights makes her an inferior officer of the United States who is supervised by the Librarian of Congress,” Perlmutter’s attorneys insist, arguing that the Trump administration’s “extraordinary theory” of executive power has already been “rejected twice” by the courts.
In a blog post, Brandon Butler, executive director of the Re:Create Coalition, a coalition that supports "a balanced copyright system," noted that the Supreme Court's one-line order declining to review the September 2025 appeals court decision that barred the Trump administration from interfering with Perlmutter's job was was “not a ruling on the merits” of the case, and that the Slaugther decision posed some challenges.
Nora Duffy
"The Supreme Court’s much bigger decision in Trump v. Slaughter can’t be good news for Copyright Office independence," Butler wrote. "Her lawsuit challenging the President’s attempt to dismiss her invokes constitutional and statutory assumptions that the Slaughter majority rejected. In Slaughter’s terminology, the Library of Congress (where the Copyright Office sits) cannot act as a 'headless fourth branch' insulated from absolute presidential control while exercising executive power in the administration of copyright laws."
What's at Stake?
The battle over the U.S. Copyright Office’s top official holds major implications, most prominently, many observers note, for the future of developing AI policy in the U.S.
In a 23-page report released on July 23, 2025—Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan—the administration proposed that the government refrain from regulating AI at this stage. Despite dozens of lawsuits over the unauthorized use of materials for training AI, the administration's AI report failed to even mention the word copyright, focusing instead on winning what is presented as an AI arms race with China.
That puts the administration’s views in tension with the findings in the third part of the Copyright Office’s AI report, which, in one section, suggests that using troves of copyrighted works to produce “expressive content” that could compete with books and other materials would likely go beyond the Copyright Act's fair use boundaries, especially if “accomplished through illegal access.”
Meanwhile, As Words & Money has reported, the lawsuit over Perlmutter’s future could be mooted by the U.S. Congress.
In June, the U.S. House of representatives passed H.R. 6028, which seeks to resolve some of the questions around the Library of Congress's reporting structure. But the bill would also remove the Copyright Office from under the purview of the Library of Congress and make the Register a presidential appointee. That move, critics (including the library community) warn would politicize the office, and could have grave implications for the future of copyright.
Joe Mullin
"Each administration will be pressured to pick nominees aligned with their own policy preferences, and the powerful copyright owning industries will invest even more heavily in lobbying to get their way," observed Joe Mullin, in a post for the EFF. "The Copyright Office should serve the public—not presidential administrations, and not industry lobbyists."
At press time, it is unclear if the U.S. Senate will act on the bill.
The president, meanwhile, could also end the current legal drama over Perlmutter's future by appointing and getting Senate confirmation of a new Librarian of Congress, who would then have the proper authority to dismiss Perlmutter.
