Democrats and Republicans Unwilling to Hand Copyright Office to Big Tech

It’s chaos at the Library of Congress and the United States Copyright Office. Less than a week after firing the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, and the Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, the Trump administration is locked in a power struggle to install AI-friendly leaders to oversee all copyrighted materials in the U.S.

As The Verge‘s Tina Nguyen reports in an excellent breakdown of the situation, “Elon Musk’s power play at the Copyright Office completely backfired.” Nguyen characterizes last week’s high-level terminations as an attempted power play by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to “take over the US Copyright Office.”

These moves occur against the backdrop of what many describe as a data coup. Representative Joe Morelle (D-NY) said that Hayden and Perlmutter were removed because they were acting as a barrier between Musk and a treasure trove of copyrighted data to use to train AI. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) went further, telling The Verge that the President and his administration had no power to fire either official.

“This all looks like another way to pay back Elon Musk and the other AI billionaires who backed Trump’s campaign,” Wyden said.

The Librarian of Congress and the Register of Copyrights are instrumental in determining how the government interprets artists’ rights and ownership in the ever-changing landscape. AI is not going anywhere, so law must grapple with the technology and its implications for what counts as human-made content.

One of the Copyright Office’s most pressing concerns today is interpreting copyright law as it relates to AI — a matter that the U.S. Copyright Office discussed at great length in a report published days before Perlmutter was kicked to the curb, illegally if Wyden is correct.

They are also vital defenders of the rights of people who have copyrighted works, as the Library of Congress maintains a robust catalog of protected works. If someone, Musk or otherwise, wanted to improve their AI models by training on a massive, diverse dataset, few would have as much appeal as the Library of Congress — it includes many of the world’s most impressive, critical creative works.

Concern over the sanctity of creative works has spilled across both aisles, with democrats and republicans alike, including hard-line MAGA supporters, expressing worry that the tech industry is squirming its way into the Library of Congress with machinations to steal protected materials.

Shortly after Hayden and Perlmutter were removed, two new men appeared at the Copyright Office inside the Library of Congress: Paul Perkins and Brian Nieves. As Nguyen writes, the natural assumption to make is that they are members of DOGE.

“But those two men, Paul Perkins and Brian Nieves, were not DOGE at all, but instead approved by the MAGA wing of the Trump coalition that aims to put tech companies in check,” Nguyen reports.

Perkins is reportedly the acting Register of Copyrights. He has been at the Department of Justice for eight years and served during the first Trump administration, tackling fraud cases. Nieves, who is essentially acting as the deputy librarian, works at the Office of the Deputy Attorney General and has previously worked as a lawyer on the House Judiciary Committee. Nieves worked alongside Rep. Jim Jordan investigating Big Tech.

Finally, there’s Todd Blanche, the Acting Librarian of Congress, who represented Trump during his 2024 criminal trial in New York. A government affairs lobbyist told The Verge that Blanche is “there to stick it to tech.”

Politicians and industry experts believe the firings of Hayden and Perlmutter were politically motivated moves designed to clear space for DOGE to infiltrate the Library of Congress. However, that’s not how the power vacuum at the Library of Congress and Copyright Office was filled.

Mike Davis, president of the Article III project and an antitrust advisor to the Trump administration, told The Verge that, “It’s not fair use under the copyright laws to take everyone’s content and have the big tech platforms monetize it. That’s the opposite of fair use. That’s a copyright infringement.” Other right-wing voices have echoed similar claims in the firing fallout, with seemingly many, regardless of their political affiliation, agreeing that it’s bad for big tech to steal people’s protected works to train AI.

“Now tech bros are going to steal creators’ copyrights for AP profits,” Davis wrote on Truth Social in response to CBS‘s reporting on Perlmutter’s termination last weekend. “This is 100% unacceptable.”

Congressional leaders are confused by what’s happening at the Library of Congress and aren’t sure what happens next.

Senator Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said that he and other leaders in D.C. “want to make sure we’re following precedent and procedure” when replacing Hayden, Politico reports.

There is significant tension between the Big Tech bankrollers who have cozied up to the Trump administration, politicians who want to retain power over congressional appointments, and left- and right-wing figures who believe that artists should own their work, and that work should not be pilfered by AI.

These tensions played out on Monday during Blanche’s arrival at the Library of Congress. Capitol Police officers were called to the scene to handle a dispute after library officials resisted Blanche’s position as acting Librarian.

If the initial intentions were to destroy the Copyright Office from the inside, the plan thus far seems not to be working. Big tech may want all that precious data, but democrats and republicans are, for now, in rare alignment: the Copyright Office is not up for grabs. For the sake of artists everywhere, hopefully that remains true for the remainder of Trump’s second term.

Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.