As you know, the US Copyright Office has been playing catch-up in the ever-changing intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright law.

Last week, the U.S. Copyright Office released a long-awaited report on the legality of using copyrighted works to train AI models. While some non-commercial and research uses might qualify as fair use, the report concludes that commercial use to generate similar expressive content likely crosses the line.

The report firmly rejects the idea that AI training is inherently transformative (an essential requirement for fair use). AI ingests perfect copies of content and outputs derivative material.

Importantly, this report challenges the legal footing of many AI tools built on content scraped off of the internet without permission of the copyright owners.

Just two days after the release of the report, Shira Perlmutter, the Copyright Office Director, was abruptly fired by President Trump (which firing came just days after the Librarian of Congress was fired for not offering up the Library of Congress archives for scraping).

Foreshadowing it all, last month, Musk wrote on X that he agreed with calls to abolish intellectual property law.

Another disturbing step toward prioritizing the private interests of corporations over our Constitutional rights. (Yes, in the United States, copyright protection is enshrined in the Constitution.)