The National Writers Union (NWU) denounces President Trump’s firing of the Register of Copyright (head of the U.S. Copyright Office), Shira Perlmutter, and the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden.
The NWU has often disagreed with the regulations and recommendations to Congress promulgated by the U.S. Copyright Office under Ms. Perlmutter, Dr. Hayden as her boss, and their predecessors.
But we respect, and honor their respect for, the statutory role of the Copyright Office as a nonpartisan administrative and technical agency tasked by law with executing current copyright law, including U.S. obligations under international copyright treaties, and giving impartial advice to Congress.
Dr. Hayden’s firing appears to have been both racist and sexist. Ms. Perlmutter was fired because she put loyalty to the law ahead of loyalty to Trump – as she and all government officials should do. We decry this further assault on the rule of law and on our rights as the creators of the works from which the value of generative AI models is derived.
Having consolidated lawless power through an administrative coup, Trump is now attempting to wield that power to further enrich his equally corrupt co-conspirator and fellow fascist, Elon Musk.
Musk has called for the elimination of protection for intellectual property – that is, of our right to the fruits of our labor – and for free rein for his xAI company and the AI ventures of other tech oligarchs to use and profit from our work without paying us.
Trump has already sought to bypass Congress and the Copyright Office and have the White House rewrite U.S. copyright law and international copyright treaties by executive order. But the changes Musk wants cannot be imposed by Presidential decree. They would require action by Congress to enact or amend legislation and to ratify new or revised treaties negotiated and agreed to internationally.
Just before the summary dismissal of Ms. Perlmutter, the Copyright Office released a report on copyright and generative artificial intelligence which acknowledged the profound differences of opinion on the legality of current AI models developed without the consent of the creators whose work has been ingested for “training” and is often regurgitated in their output. The Copyright Office report followed an extensive public consultation in which we, other creators, and the AI companies that want to use our work without paying for it all participated in public hearings and written submissions.
That studied neutrality by the Copyright Office wasn’t enough, apparently, for Trump and Musk.
Trump’s firing of Ms. Perlmutter is yet another display of his unwillingness to tolerate anything less than enthusiastic and sycophantic collaboration in his wielding of lawless power and his cooptation of Federal agencies to enrich himself and his friends. We are committed to resist this reign of corruption.
We continue to call for policies on generative AI that center the humanity of creators and other workers around the world whose lives and livelihoods are implicated by generative AI, in accordance with the NWU’s Platform and Principles for Policy on Generative AI.
