Late yesterday we learned of a change to the copyright landscape in Washington. Multiple reports have confirmed that the current U.S. Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, has been fired by President Trump. This comes approximately a week after the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, was similarly fired. The Library of Congress is the department that oversees the Copyright Office.
The loss of Register Perlmutter is a concerning development for the ASMP community, and the U.S. creative world at large. While we do not know who will be the next Register of Copyrights, what we do know is that Register Perlmutter was consistently receptive to the concerns of ASMP and photographers. That is not to say that there were not disagreements, and we certainly encouraged the Copyright Office to move more quickly on important issues, but we knew that any time we needed to talk to the Copyright Office, or Register Perlmutter herself, she would take our meeting and lend her ear to our concerns.
The firing comes on the heels of the final part of a Copyright Office report regarding the implications of Generative AI on copyright. You can see the full report here: Part I, Part II, and Part III. The third part of this long-awaited report was released on May 9th, just days before Register Perlmutter was fired.
Part III of the report is focused on Generative AI Training, which include some of the most important copyright questions surrounding Generative AI, including many issues that ASMP has been focused on bringing to the attention of the Copyright Office. For example, the report states:
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.
USCO Report, Part III, Generative AI Training
We will have much more to say about all three parts of this report in the near future, but suffice it to say that it appears the USCO heard our voice, even if not every argument was in our favor.
It is hard to say what will come next. The next Register of Copyrights will be thrust into a very precarious position at a time when generative AI is poised to upend the last 200+ years of copyright law in the United States. I hope and expect that ASMP can maintain its strong relationship with the Copyright Offfice so that we can continue to advoacate on behalf of all photographers, both Members and Non-Members, as we all navigate this critical time for dertermining the future of intellectual property ownership.
To the ASMP Community, I will say this: ASMP will always fight for you, as we have for the last 80 years, in the courts, in Congress, and especially in the corridors of the U.S. Copyright Office no matter who leads this critical organization. Thank you for your continued support and passion.
Thomas Maddrey