On Saturday, President Donald Trump dismissed the copyright register, just a day after her office indicated that it was infringing copyright by collecting protected works for AI training purposes.
The removal of Perlmutter, first reported by Politico, led to a broader suspension of leadership at the Library of Congress, which began with the ousting of Congressional librarian Carla Hayden on Thursday. Hayden was the official who appointed Perlmutter in 2020.
A report released on Friday stated, “The commercial use of most copyrighted works to create competing content, particularly through illegal means, exceeds the limits of established fair use.”
The report, which is part of a series on Artificial Intelligence at the Copyright Office, rejected claims that ingesting entire libraries is comparable to human learning and stated that AI systems operate at “superhuman speed and scale,” going beyond accepted fair use. It urged Congress to consider licensing regimes if voluntary agreements between parties fail.
Perlmutter’s stance alienated some high-tech supporters, such as Elon Musk, who recently backed calls to eliminate all intellectual property laws.
Meanwhile, Trump highlighted a post from conservative legal activist Mike Davis, who labeled the situation “100% unacceptable.” Davis, a former Senate judicial officer, has become a notable voice in conservative legal circles, expressing concerns about what he views as copyright theft by Big Tech.
According to a leak to Politico, the former register received a short email on Saturday informing her of the end of her position. Officials from the Trump administration haven’t provided an explanation, and neither the White House nor the Copyright Office has responded to requests for comments.
In Perlmutter’s section on AI, the office articulated why large-scale copying oversteps fair use principles for machine learning, arguing that tech companies have a “limited” similarity to human research and that creators who bypass customary prices without authorization bear responsibility for commercial use.
This situation develops amid ongoing legal disputes between rights holders and major AI entities like OpenAI, Google, and Stability AI, which are facing infringement lawsuits that echo the reasoning from the Copyright Office.
Democrats criticized the abrupt dismissals, saying they disrupt a century-old system designed to keep copyright enforcement nonpartisan. Joe Morell, a prominent Democrat on the House Management Committee, stated that Trump’s termination of Perlmutter represents an unprecedented power grab without legal grounds, noting that the action came swiftly after she denied a request regarding copyright mining for AI training.
