KATHERINE TULLY-MCMANUS, Politico ; Fired copyright chief loses first round in lawsuit over Trump powers
"A judge denied a request for reinstatement Wednesday from the ousted head of the national copyright office, rejecting for now her claims that President Donald Trump had no right to fire her."
"The Trump administration fired back Monday against ousted Copyright Office chief Shira Perlmutter’s lawsuit, arguing her emergency request for reinstatement should be denied because the president has sweeping authority to remove her."
Hallie Rich, Library Journal; Leadership Limbo at the Library of Congress
"REMAINING NONPARTISAN
According to reporting across major media outlets, staff continue to await guidance from the congressional committees charged with LoC oversight—and questions over the future of the Library as a nonpartisan legislative branch agency hang in the balance. The Congressional Research Service (CRS), the research arm of the Library that works exclusively for members of Congress, provides confidential policy and legal analysis to lawmakers and staff of both chambers, regardless of party affiliation...
WILL CONGRESS ACT?
Politico reported on May 21 that Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) “thinks Congress needs to take charge in naming the heads of major legislative branch agencies, including the Library of Congress and Government Accountability Office.” Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) recommended modifying the process for appointing the Librarian of Congress, citing legislation she wrote that removed presidential involvement in appointing the architect of the Capitol. “Just like we changed the rules with architect the Capitol, we should change them here,” she told reporters.
Legislation that would grant appointment authority for the Librarian of Congress, the leader of a legislative branch agency, exclusively to Congress is one potential path forward.
Library professionals who are concerned about the independence of the Library of Congress should "reach out to your member of Congress,” says one source who spoke on the condition of anonymity, “and do so quickly.” The White House’s effort to install new leadership at the Library was staved off because staff are awaiting direction from Congress.
The Librarian of Congress is not appointed at the sole discretion of the president—an appointment requires Senate confirmation. According to reporting by The New York Times, LoC staff are currently following internal procedures by keeping Newlen in charge, but more permanent answers to questions about the future of the Library as a nonpartisan legislative branch agency appear to lie, at this time, with members of Congress."
Blake Brittain, Reuters; US Copyright Office director sues Trump administration over firing
"The U.S. Copyright Office director fired by the Trump administration sued President Donald Trump and other government officials on Thursday, arguing her firing was unconstitutional and should not be allowed to take effect.
Shira Perlmutter said in the lawsuit that her termination by email on May 10 was "blatantly unlawful," and that only the U.S. Congress can remove her from office."
JARED GANS, The Hill ; Democrats press Trump on Copyright Office chief’s removal
"A half dozen Senate Democrats are pressing President Trump over his firing of the head of the U.S. Copyright Office, arguing that the move is illegal.
“It threatens the longstanding independence and integrity of the Copyright Office, which plays a vital role in our economy,” the members said in the letter. “You are acting beyond your power and contrary to the intent of Congress as you seek to erode the legal and institutional independence of offices explicitly designed to operate outside the reach of partisan influence.” ...
The head of the Copyright Office is responsible for shaping federal copyright policy, and the senators argued the role is particularly crucial as the country confronts issues concerning the intersection of copyright law and technologies like artificial intelligence."
Blake Montgomery , The Guardian; Trump strikes a blow for AI – by firing the US copyright supremo
"Over the weekend, Donald Trump fired the head of the US copyright office, CBS News reported. Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, was sacked after she issued a report questioning AI companies’ growing need for more data and casting doubt on their expressed need to circumvent current copyright laws.
In a statement, New York Democratic representative Joe Morelle pointed specifically to Trump’s booster-in-chief Elon Musk as a motivator for Perlmutter’s firing: “Donald Trump’s termination of register of copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, is a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis. It is surely no coincidence he acted less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”
Trump’s abrupt severing of the copyright chief from her job reminds me of the Gordian knot. Legend has it that Alexander the Great was presented with a knot in a rope tying a cart to a stake. So complex were its twistings that no man had been able to untie it of the hundreds who had tried. Alexander silently drew his sword and sliced the knot in two. The story is one of a great man demonstrating the ingenuity that would lead him to conquer the world. Alexander did solve the riddle. He also defeated its purpose. The cart is left with no anchor. Perhaps the riddle had taken on more significance than the original problem of keeping the cart in place, but that is a question for another day.
Trump may have cut through any thorny legal questions the copyright office had raised, but the vacuum at the head of the US’s copyright authority means that richer and better-connected players will run roughshod over copyright law in the course of their business. That may be what the president wants. The more powerful players in lawsuits over AI and copyright are undoubtedly the well capitalized AI companies, as much as I want artists to be paid in abundance for their creativity. These tech companies have cozied up to Trump in an effort to ensure a friendlier regulatory environment, which seems to be working if the firing of the copyright chief is any evidence. Lawsuits over how much AI companies owe artists and publishers for their surreptitious use of copyrighted material with an avowed lack of permission still abound, and both plaintiffs and defendants will be taking their cues from the US copyright office."
Maya C. Miller and Devlin Barrett , The New York Times; Trump Installs Top Justice Dept. Official at Library of Congress, Prompting a Standoff
"Around 9 a.m., the two Justice Department officials arrived at the library’s James Madison Memorial Building and sought access to the U.S. Copyright Office, which is housed there. They brought a letter from the White House declaring that Mr. Blanche was the acting librarian and that he had selected the two men for top roles at the agency.
They were Paul Perkins, an associate deputy attorney general who the letter said would serve as the acting register of copyrights and the director of the Copyright Office, and Brian Nieves, a deputy chief of staff and senior policy counsel who had been designated as the acting deputy librarian. Mr. Trump also fired the previous director of the Copyright Office, Shira Perlmutter, over the weekend, one of the people said.
Staff members at the library balked and called the U.S. Capitol Police as well as their general counsel, Meg Williams, who told the two officials that they were not allowed access to the Copyright Office and asked them to leave, one of the people said.
Mr. Perkins and Mr. Nieves then left the building willingly, accompanied to the door by Ms. Williams. The library’s staff is recognizing Robert Newlen, the principal deputy librarian who was Dr. Hayden’s No. 2, as the acting librarian until it gets direction from Congress, one of the people familiar with the situation said.
In a brief email to the staff on Monday, Mr. Newlen noted that the White House had named a new acting librarian and suggested that the matter was still unresolved."
Simon Sherwood, The Register; US Copyright Office found AI companies sometimes breach copyright. Next day its boss was fired
"The head of the US Copyright Office has reportedly been fired, the day after agency concluded that builders of AI models use of copyrighted material went beyond existing doctrines of fair use.
The office’s opinion on fair use came in a draft of the third part of its report on copyright and artificial intelligence. The first part considered digital replicas and the second tackled whether it is possible to copyright the output of generative AI.
The office published the draft [PDF] of Part 3, which addresses the use of copyrighted works in the development of generative AI systems, on May 9th.
The draft notes that generative AI systems “draw on massive troves of data, including copyrighted works” and asks: “Do any of the acts involved require the copyright owners’ consent or compensation?”"
"As for how this ties into Musk (a Trump ally) and AI, Morelle linked to a pre-publication version of a U.S. Copyright Office report released this week that focuses on copyright and artificial intelligence. (In fact, it’s actually part three of a longer report.)
In it, the Copyright Office says that while it’s “not possible to prejudge” the outcome of individual cases, there are limitations on how much AI companies can count on “fair use” as a defense when they train their models on copyrighted content. For example, the report says research and analysis would probably be allowed.
“But making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries,” it continues.
The Copyright Office goes on to suggest that government intervention “would be premature at this time,” but it expresses hope that “licensing markets” where AI companies pay copyright holders for access to their content “should continue to develop,” adding that “alternative approaches such as extended collective licensing should be considered to address any market failure.”
AI companies including OpenAI currently face a number of lawsuits accusing them of copyright infringement, and OpenAI has also called for the U.S. government to codify a copyright strategy that gives AI companies leeway through fair use.
Musk, meanwhile, is both a co-founder of OpenAI and of a competing startup, xAI (which is merging with the former Twitter). He recently expressed support for Square founder Jack Dorsey’s call to “delete all IP law.”"
U.S. Copyright Office, Issue No. 1070; U.S. Copyright Office Releases New Copyright Registration Toolkit
"Today, the U.S. Copyright Office released the Copyright Registration Toolkit, a comprehensive resource designed to help creators, small business owners, advisors, and others navigate the copyright system. As part of the Copyright Office’s Copyright for All initiative, the toolkit is a visual breakdown of copyright, including essential information about copyright law, how to prepare for copyright registration, what to expect during the process, and post-registration considerations.
“The Copyright Registration Toolkit makes copyright information more accessible and user-friendly for all creators,” said Associate Register of Copyrights and Director of Public Information and Education Miriam Lord. “Resources like this one empower authors, artists, musicians, and their advisors to protect and manage creative works with confidence.”
Developed in conjunction with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's intellectual property (IP) toolkits for trademarks, trade secrets, and patents, these resources collectively provide a broad overview of IP protection under U.S. law.
Copyright Office attorneys, writers, and designers collaborated on the toolkit to ensure it serves as a reliable and engaging reference for creators making business decisions about their creative works and for advisors who help guide them in understanding their rights as IP owners.
To explore the Copyright Registration Toolkit, visit the landing page. For further inquiries, the Public Information Office is available Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m. eastern time, to assist with questions about the copyright registration process."
Tom Temin, Federal News Network; The Copyright Office takes on the sticky issue of artificial intelligence
"Artificial intelligence raises storms of questions in every domain it touches. Chief among them, copyright questions. Now the U.S. Copyright Office, a congressional agency, has completed the second of two studies of AI and copyrights. This one deals with whether you can copyright outputs created using AI. Emily Chapuis, the Copyright Office’s deputy general counsel, joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to discuss...
Emily Chapuis: Yeah. That’s right. So we don’t recommend in the report that Congress take any action. And the reason for this is we think that copyright law is sufficiently flexible to deal with changes in technology. And that’s not just based on AI, but on the entire history of copyright law, has had to deal with these questions, whether it’s the development of the camera or the internet. The questions about copyright ability are always on a case-by-case basis. And the technology that’s used and how it’s used and what it’s used for are important elements of that. But the sort of defining legal principles aren’t different in this context than in those other ones.
Tom Temin: Right. So the human input idea then is kind of an eternal for copyright. How do you decide that? Is it a percentage of human input? Because the machine does a lot here. But you could say, ‘Well, the camera did a lot when it opened and closed the shutter and exposed silver halide. And then there was a machine process to produce that image. But it was the selection, the timing, the decisive moment.’ To quote Henri Cartier-Bresson, another French photographer. That’s really the issue here. The human input and not the machine input.
Emily Chapuis: Yeah, that’s right. And it’s hard to parse. I mean, we’ve had people ask, so what’s the percentage that has to be human created? And there’s not a clear answer to that, again, because it’s case by case. But also the question isn’t really amount as much as it is control. So who’s controlling the expression. And so one of the things that we try to explain is that even the same technology can be used in a variety of different ways. So you can use generative AI technology as a tool assistive to enhance the human expression or you can use it as a substitute for human expression. And so control is sort of the bottom line in terms of what we’re looking at to draw that distinction."
MATT GROWCOOT, PetaPixel; This is the First-Ever AI Image to Be Granted Copyright Protection
"A company has secured the first-ever copyright protection for an artwork entirely generated by AI from the U.S. Copyright Office.
Kent Keirsey, CEO of Invoke, demonstrated to the U.S. Copyright Office that he had inputted enough human creativity into the image to warrant protection.
Invoke is a generative AI platform for professional studios to create visual media. Keirsey used Invoke’s inpainting features to iterate upon an AI-generated image, coordinating and arranging where to inpaint and then selecting from multiple options to create a composite work which he calls A Single Piece of American Cheese. He added roughly 35 AI edits to the AI image."
U.S. Copyright Office, Issue No. 1062; U.S. Copyright Office Releases Publication Produced by Group of Economic Scholars Identifying the Economic Implications of Artificial Intelligence for Copyright Policy
"Today, the U.S. Copyright Office is releasing Identifying the Economic Implications of Artificial Intelligence for Copyright Policy: Context and Direction for Economic Research. The publication, produced by a group of economic scholars, discusses the economic issues at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright policy. The group engaged in several months of substantive discussions, consultation with technical experts, and research, culminating in a daylong roundtable event. Participants spent the subsequent months articulating and refining the roundtable discussions, resulting in today’s publication. The group’s goal was identifying the most consequential economic characteristics of AI and copyright and what factors may inform policy decisions.
"Development of AI technology has meaningful implications for the economic frameworks of copyright policy, and economists have only just begun to explore those," said Copyright Office Chief Economist Brent Lutes. "The Office convened an economic roundtable on AI and copyright policy with experts to help expediate research and coordinate the research community. The goal of this group’s work is to provide the broader economic research community a structured and rigorous framework for considering economic evidence."
This publication serves as a platform for articulating the ideas expressed by participants as part of the roundtable. All principal contributors submitted written materials summarizing the group’s prior discussions on a particular topic, with editorial support provided by the Office of the Chief Economist. The many ideas and views discussed in this project do not necessarily represent the views of every roundtable participant or their respective institutions. The U.S. Copyright Office does not take a position on these ideas for the purposes of this project."
David Gewirtz, Senior Contributing Editor, ZDNet; The US Copyright Office's new ruling on AI art is here - and it could change everything
"Last week, the US Copyright Office released its detailed report and comprehensive guidelines on the issue of copyright protection and AI-generated work.
For a government legal document, it is a fascinating exploration of the intersection of artificial intelligence and the very concept of authorship and creativity. The study's authors conduct a deep dive, taking in comments from the general public and experts alike, and producing an analysis of what it means to creatively author a work.
They then explore the issue of whether an AI-generated work versus an AI-assisted work is subject to copyright protection, and what that means not only for individual authors but also for the encouragement of creativity and innovation in society as a whole.
This is the second of what will be a three-part report from the Copyright Office. Part 1, published last year, explored digital replicas, using digital technology to "realistically replicate" someone's voice or appearance.
Part 3 is expected to be released later this year. It will focus on the issues of training AIs using copyrighted works, aspects of licensing, and how liability might be allocated in cases where a spectacular AI failure can be attributed to training (which sometimes results in litigation)."
ASHLEY BELANGER , Ars Technica; Copyright Office suggests AI copyright debate was settled in 1965
"For stakeholders who have been awaiting this guidance for months, the Copyright Office report may not change the law, but it offers some clarity.
For some artists who hoped to push the Copyright Office to adapt laws, the guidelines may disappoint, leaving many questions about a world of possible creative AI uses unanswered. But while a case-by-case approach may leave some artists unsure about which parts of their works are copyrightable, seemingly common cases are being resolved more readily. According to the Copyright Office, after each decision, it gets easier to register AI works that meet similar standards for copyrightability. Perhaps over time, artists will grow more secure in how they use AI and whether it will impact their exclusive rights to distribute works.
That's likely cold comfort for the artist advocating for prompting alone to constitute authorship. One AI artist told Ars in October that being denied a copyright has meant suffering being mocked and watching his award-winning work freely used anywhere online without his permission and without payment. But in the end, the Copyright Office was apparently more sympathetic to other commenters who warned that humanity's progress in the arts could be hampered if a flood of easily generated, copyrightable AI works drowned too many humans out of the market...
Although the Copyright Office suggested that this week's report might be the most highly anticipated, Jernite said that Hugging Face is eager to see the next report, which officials said would focus on "the legal implications of training AI models on copyrighted works, including licensing considerations and the allocation of any potential liability.""
MATT O’BRIEN, AP; AI-assisted works can get copyright with enough human creativity, says US copyright office
"Artists can copyright works they made with the help of artificial intelligence, according to a new report by the U.S. Copyright Office that could further clear the way for the use of AI tools in Hollywood, the music industry and other creative fields.
The nation’s copyright office, which sits in the Library of Congress and is not part of the executive branch, receives about half a million copyright applications per year covering millions of individual works. It has increasingly been asked to register works that are AI-generated.
And while many of those decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, the report issued Wednesday clarifies the office’s approach as one based on what the top U.S. copyright official describes as the “centrality of human creativity” in authoring a work that warrants copyright protections."
