The ousted head of the US Copyright Office has filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump, after having been fired by the White House a day after releasing a report on AI and copyright that largely sided with rightsholders and against AI developers.
Shira Perlmutter, who held the position of Register of Copyrights until May 10 – and contends in the lawsuit that she still legally holds that position – filed the lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday (May 22).
“The Administration’s attempts to remove Ms. Perlmutter as the Register of Copyrights are blatantly unlawful. Congress vested the Librarian of Congress – not the President – with the power to appoint, and therefore to remove, the Register of Copyrights,” Perlmutter’s lawyers stated in the complaint, which can be read in full here.
Earlier this month, the Trump Administration fired Carla D. Hayden, the Librarian of Congress, and replaced Hayden with Todd Blanche, a Deputy Attorney General with the Department of Justice.
Blanche then immediately fired Perlmutter from the position at the US Copyright Office, which is part of the Library of Congress, and replaced her with Paul Perkins, an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the DoJ.
“The President has no authority to name a temporary replacement Librarian of Congress, much less name a high-ranking DOJ official whose presence offends the constitutional separation of powers,” Perlmutter’s legal complaint states.
While the president has the power to hire and fire employees within the executive branch of government, that power doesn’t extend to the Library of Congress, which is under the legislative branch, Perlmutter’s complaint argues.
As a result, “the President’s attempt to name Mr. Blanche as acting Librarian of Congress was unlawful and ineffective, and therefore Mr. Blanche cannot remove or replace Ms. Perlmutter.”
“The President has no authority to name a temporary replacement Librarian of Congress, much less name a high-ranking DOJ official whose presence offends the constitutional separation of powers.”
Shira Perlmutter, in a legal complaint against the Trump administration
As her legal complaint notes, Perlmutter’s firing took place one day after she released a report which concluded that using copyrighted content without permission to train AI models shouldn’t be considered “fair use.”
A number of AI developers, including Anthropic and AI music platforms Suno and Udio, have argued that their unauthorized use of copyrighted materials should be granted a “fair use” exemption – a position opposed by copyright holders, including much of the music industry.
“[M]aking 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,” Perlmutter’s report stated.
In her complaint Thursday, Perlmutter asked the court for a restraining order against Blanche requiring him “not to exercise the powers of acting Librarian of Congress,” as well as a restraining order against Perkins requiring him “not to exercise the powers of acting Register of Copyrights.”
Perlmutter also asked the court for a permanent injunction declaring that she can’t be removed from office “absent a decision by a lawfully appointed Librarian of Congress.”
Perlmutter is represented in the case by lawyers from the Democracy Forward Foundation, a Washington, DC-based anti-corruption nonprofit that provides legal services, and by lawyers from Los Angeles-headquartered law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP.Music Business Worldwide
