Ousted US copyright chief argues Trump did not have power to remove her

The former head of the US Copyright Office has pushed back against arguments from President Donald Trump's team that her dismissal was lawful.

Shira Perlmutter was ousted after the US Copyright Office released a report challenging the limits of the "fair use" defense used by AI companies to justify training their models on copyrighted material.

In a filing [PDF] to support her attempt to obtain a preliminary injunction this week, Perlmutter argued that her removal was unlawful and caused her immediate and irreparable harm. It said that by firing her, the Trump administration threatened her office's ability to function in the manner that Congress intended.

In May, Perlmutter was removed from office after her agency concluded that AI developers' use of copyrighted material exceeded the bounds of existing fair use doctrine. Her draft report [PDF] argued that fair use does not cover the commercial use of large volumes ...