• Background: A day after the US Copyright Office's pre-publication report challenging AI firms' fair use argument, the Trump administration fired Shira Perlmutter. Tensions escalated as industry advocates decried the report. Capitol Police had an apparent standoff with men rumored to be with Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
• Perlmutter's firing: It followed Donald Trump's removal of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. The firing sparked public backlash, with the White House Press Secretary claiming it was due to "quite concerning things" at the Library of Congress. Critics saw it as an unacceptable intrusion into a cultural institution.
• Copyright Office report on fair use: Not finalized but expected not to change radically. After parsing over 10,000 comments, it acknowledged high stakes and the need for a balance. The first and fourth factors of fair use are likely to hold the most weight. It raised points like the open question of AI data needs and the need for a consent framework. It concluded that AI trained on copyrighted works could replace original creators and gave examples of fair and non-fair uses.
• Tech industry's accusation: Only courts can weigh fair use. Some judges' thinking aligned with the Copyright Office guidance. The New York Times spokesperson said both the Office and courts recognize unauthorized use of copyrighted works for AI is not fair use. Industry stakeholders criticized the report, with the Computer & Communications Industry Association and Chamber of Progress raising concerns. The Copyright Office said it's not possible to prejudge cases but precedent supports some general observations.
• Copyright Office's stance on Meta's torrenting: It wrote that commercial use of vast copyrighted works to produce competing content through illegal access goes beyond fair use boundaries. Judge Chhabria only considered Meta's torrenting "kind of messed up" in the book authors' case. The Copyright Office suggested that using pirated works for training is unlikely to be fair use and can harm markets.