Trump fires US director after report questions training AI on copyrighted material
Trump fires U.S. Copyright Office head after AI report questions fair use for training. Legal, tech, and creative sectors react sharply.
US President Donald Trump has dismissed Shira Perlmutter, Director of the U.S. Copyright Office, just days after the agency released a report questioning the legality of using copyrighted works to train artificial intelligence systems.
The move has sparked backlash from lawmakers and the creative industry, raising concerns over political interference and the future of copyright law in the age of AI.
Report questions fair use in AI training
According to the U.S. Copyright Office’s new report, part of its broader study on copyright and artificial intelligence, evaluates whether copyrighted materials can be legally used to train generative AI systems.
The report concludes that while some uses, such as for research or educational purposes, might fall under the “fair use” doctrine, many commercial applications likely do not qualify.
“Making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets… goes beyond established fair use boundaries,” the report states.
This analysis challenges the legal assumptions under which many AI companies operate, especially those that scrape publicly available content for large-scale training datasets.
Perlmutter’s dismissal raises political concerns
Shira Perlmutter, appointed by former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden in 2020, was removed shortly after the release of the report. The White House has not issued a formal explanation, but the timing has drawn criticism from members of Congress.
Representative Joe Morelle (D-NY), ranking member of the House Administration Committee, claimed in a statement that the firing was politically motivated. He alleged that Perlmutter had resisted pressure from the administration to greenlight AI training methods used by companies like Elon Musk’s xAI.
Perlmutter’s departure follows the earlier dismissal of Hayden, who had named her to the role. Observers say the two firings suggest a broader effort by the Trump administration to influence the direction of copyright policy as it relates to emerging technologies.
