Trump Dismisses Copyright Office Director Amid AI Controversy

In an unprecedented action, President Donald Trump has dismissed Shira Perlmutter, the director of the U.S. Copyright Office. Perlmutter assumed the position in 2020, during Trump’s first term in office. She was let go after she had rescinded her support for Elon Musk’s attempts to use copyrighted works to train artificial intelligence mediums. This decision is a welcome development, especially with rapidly increasing concerns about how copyright law and AI technology operate.

For one, Trump suggested the dismissal of Perlmutter on his social media platform, Truth Social. He cited the current debates over copyright and AI in his written posts. Fortunately, the U.S. Copyright Office just released a pre-publication version of a long-awaited report that does just that. This is the third post in a series examining the challenges of copyright in the era of artificial intelligence.

Elon Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI and currently affiliated with xAI, has been vocal about the need to overhaul intellectual property laws. Just this week, he voiced support for calls issued by Square’s Jack Dorsey to “remove all IP law.” Musk’s trend of AI development makes it imperative to concern ourselves with the greater implications for creators and their copyrights.

Perlmutter’s dismissal has already come under fire from all sides, and for good reason — especially as this provision could be abused by the tech industry. Mike Davis, a political commentator close to Trump’s administration, went straight to Truth Social. He made his own worries about the implications of her firing well known. He cautioned that tech entrepreneurs may seek to profit by infringing upon the copyrights of creators. This may be at the cost of the original content creators.

“Donald Trump’s termination of Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, is a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis,” – Representative Joe Morelle