Top copyright official sues Trump over firing

(CN) — The U.S. Copyright Office Director removed from her position by the Trump administration says in a Thursday lawsuit that the only person with the authority to fire her is the Librarian of Congress — whom the president also fired previously.

“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,” Shira Perlmutter says in her 14-page complaint filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

As head of the nation’s copyright office, Perlmutter would have overseen registering copyright claims and maintaining records about copyright ownership. The office functioned within the Library of Congress by providing the copyright deposits that make up a significant part of the library’s collections.

The copyright office is also responsible for conducting studies and advising Congress on copyright issues, including regarding the growing generative artificial intelligence industry.

On May 9, the office issued a report finding that some uses of copyrighted works in generative AI training could run afoul of fair use laws. Perlmutter says she received an email terminating her as Register of Copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright office the next day.

Several major tech companies, like OpenAI and Meta, are facing mounting litigation from actors, authors, newspaper publishers and more, who say their copyrighted works have been improperly used to train the companies’ AI models.

Perlmutter’s firing came on the heels of President Donald Trump terminating Carla Hayden as Librarian of Congress on May 8, reportedly as part of his sweeping purge of government officials he sees as opposing his agenda.

At the time, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, according to Perlmutter in her suit, had said Hayden’s firing was due to “quite concerning things that [Dr. Hayden] had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of [diversity, equity and inclusion] and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.”

Hayden appointed Perlmutter as top copyright official in October 2020.

Trump later named U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as acting Librarian of Congress, but Perlmutter disputes Blanche’s claim to the role.

“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,” she writes in the suit.

According to Perlmutter, Blanche sent two other Department of Justice officials in to take over as acting Deputy Librarian of Congress and as Register of Copyrights.

Because Blanche was unlawfully appointed, Perlmutter says he had no authority to remove and replace her.

Perlmutter, represented by the D.C.-based Democracy Forward Foundation and the LA-based Munger, Tolles & Olson, brings a pair of claims of constitutional violation against Trump and asks for the court to place an injunction preventing Blanche and the other DOJ officials from exercising any library or copyright office powers. She also asks the court to block her own firing and declare that she remains the rightful Register of Copyrights.

Perlmutter says that the president, under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, is authorized to fill vacant position only in the executive branch, not anywhere else, like the Library of Congress.

Under Congressional authority, Perlmutter claims interim Principal Deputy Librarian Robert Newlen should have the powers of the acting Librarian of Congress, not Blanche.