President Donald Trump has fired Shira Perlmutter from her role as the head of the U.S. Copyright Office “effective immediately.”
Perlmutter, a former Bill Clinton administration official, was appointed to the role by Carla Hayden.
Hayden, a Barack Obama appointee, was fired from her role as the Librarian of Congress last week.
The U.S. Copyright Office is overseen by the Library of Congress.
Perlmutter reportedly received an email from the White House on Saturday, stating:
“Your position as the Register of Copyrights and Director at the U.S. Copyright Office is terminated effective immediately.”
Trump fired Hayden on Thursday.
The termination was part of the administration’s ongoing purge of government officials who are perceived to be opposed to Trump and his agenda.
Hayden tapped Perlmutter to lead the Copyright Office in October 2020.
Like Perlmutter, Hayden was notified of her firing in an email, according to The Associated Press.
The email was sent to Hayden by the White House’s Presidential Personnel Office.
“Carla,” the email reportedly began.
“On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately.
“Thank you for your service.”
The firing comes after Perlmutter’s office recently released a report examining artificial intelligence (AI) companies.
The report questions whether AI companies can use copyrighted materials to “train” their systems.
The report followed a review that started in 2023 with opinions from thousands of individuals, including AI developers, actors, and country singers.
The Copyright Office clarified its approach in January.
Perlmutter’s team stated that the approach was one based on the “centrality of human creativity” in authoring a work that warrants copyright protections.
The Copyright Office takes in about half a million copyright applications each year, covering millions of creative works.
“Where that creativity is expressed through the use of AI systems, it continues to enjoy protection,” Perlmutter said in January.
“Extending protection to material whose expressive elements are determined by a machine… would undermine rather than further the constitutional goals of copyright.”
Her firing was likely not tied to the AI report, however.
Like other officials fired by Trump, she was mostly ousted for holding misguided loyalties to previous administrations.
Perlmutter, who holds a law degree, was previously a policy director at the Patent and Trademark Office and worked on copyright and other areas of intellectual property.
She also previously worked at the Copyright Office in the late 1990s.
Perlmutter was the copyright consultant to the Clinton administration’s Advisory Council on the National Information Infrastructure in 1994–95.
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