Trump Abruptly Fires Top Copyright Officer
The move comes after the Copyright Office released the third and final part of a wide-ranging review critical of the tech industry's approach to AI, but the firing may have more to do with raw politics than policy.
After the shock firing of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden by email on the evening of May 8, the Trump Administration on Saturday followed up by firing one of Hayden's most high-profile appointments: Register of Copyright Shira Perlmutter.
At press time, administration officials have not yet commented, but sources say, and multiple outlets have reported, that Perlmutter was axed via email on Saturday, May 10.
Hayden announced Perlmutter as the 14th U.S. register of copyrights in September, 2021, succeeding associate register of copyrights for policy and international affairs Maria Strong, who had served as acting register since January 2020 following the departure of Karyn Temple, who announced her departure from the Copyright Office in December of 2019, just months after her permanent appointment, to become the global general counsel of the Motion Picture Association.
Perlmutter's dismissal has 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 overseen by the Library of Congress. Critics of Permlutter's firing have been quick to note that move immediately followed the pre-publication release of the third and final part of a wide-ranging Copyright Office review of the legal and policy questions swirling around AI.
“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," said New York congressman Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the Committee on House Administration, which, among its mandates, oversees the Library of Congress, which has authority over the Copyright Office. “This action once again tramples on Congress’s Article One authority, and throws a trillion-dollar industry into chaos."
Critics have also been quick to point out that Perlmutter's firing comes weeks after Tech industry leaders expressed a desire on social media to slash intellectual property protections. "Delete all IP law," Twitter founder Jack Dorsey wrote in an April 11 post on X, to which X owner and DOGE leader Elon Musk replied "I agree."
Furthermore, the topic of AI dominated the Association of American Publishers Annual Conference last week.
“Of course, we understand that American AI companies must move rapidly to remain competitive over autocrats," AAP president and CEO Maria Pallante told attendees. "But sacrificing the long-established principles of copyright in the process serves Big Tech, not the public. Weakening IP would be a misguided move for a short-term advantage, and it would introduce the greater danger of a tech sector capable of decimating other sectors, like publishing, that are critical partners to the government on security, safety, and public progress.”
The Trump Administration's AI Action Plan is due to be announced sometime this summer.
But while the timing of Perlmutter's dismissal certainly raises suspicions, her targeting appears to be driven more by politics than policy. In recent weeks, Perlmutter had come under fire by the same right-wing political group that targeted Carla Hayden, the American Accountability Foundation.
On April 30, British tabloid The Daily Mail reported that the group, which is led by veteran Republican operative Tom Jones, had launched a campaign targeting both Hayden and Perlmutter, accusing them of being "biased left-wing" activists.
“The President and his team have done an admirable and long-needed job cleaning out deep state liberals from the federal government,” Jones told the Daily Mail. “It is time they show Carla Hayden and Shira Perlmutter the door and return an America First agenda to the nation's intellectual property regulation.”
Meanwhile, lawyers told Words & Money that Perlmutter's dismissal is almost certainly illegal.
"The President doesn't have the power to remove the Register," says Washington D.C.-based lawyer Jonathan Band, who works closely with the library community. "Only the Librarian of Congress, or the acting Librarian, if the Librarian was lawfully removed, has the power to remove the Register."
Still, Band agreed that litigation likely wouldn't be able save Permlutter's job if Trump was determined to remove her, because the president could simply appoint an acting Librarian of Congress that would do his bidding. "The President could keep firing acting Librarians until he finds one that is willing to remove the Register," Band said.
Band praised Perlmutter for her work at the Copyright Office.
"My personal view is that Shira has been a very good Register. She's very smart, understands copyright law and policy, has an open mind, and really tries to find consensus among the disparate stakeholders," he told Words & Money. "She has been a dedicated public servant, and doesn't deserve any of this chaos."
