Trump fires head of U.S. Copyright Office after report on AI training rights

The Trump administration fired the top U.S. copyright official in an email from the White House on Saturday, a U.S. Copyright Office spokesperson confirmed.

The firing of Copyright Office director Shira Perlmutter follows President Donald Trump's termination of U.S. Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden on Friday. The Copyright Office is a department of the Library of Congress.

Spokespeople for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Perlmutter's firing on Monday.

Democratic U.S. Senators Adam Schiff of California and Chuck Schumer of New York called Perlmutter's firing unlawful in a joint statement and said that Congress "purposefully insulated this role and the U.S. Copyright Office from politics."

The Copyright Office under Perlmutter released a report late on May 9 advising that technology companies' use of vast amounts of copyrighted works to train artificial intelligence systems which "produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets" may not be protected by U.S. copyright law.

Tech companies including OpenAI and Meta Platforms have told the office that being forced to pay copyright holders for their content could cripple the burgeoning U.S. AI industry.

Democratic U.S. Representative Joe Morelle of New York said in a statement that it was "surely no coincidence" that Perlmutter was fired "less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk's efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models."

Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has reportedly used AI in its efforts to reduce the size of the federal government, also owns artificial intelligence company xAI.

Musk and spokespeople for DOGE and xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Perlmutter's firing.