Why It Matters

The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property's Copyright Office oversight hearing on May 12, 2026, unfolded against an extraordinary backdrop: the sole witness, Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office, had been fired by President Trump in May 2025, sued to get her job back, and was reinstated by a federal appeals court.

The Trump administration has stated it believes AI training on copyrighted material does not violate copyright law, a position directly at odds with the Copyright Office's own AI report, which concluded that training on copyrighted works qualifies as fair use only in some circumstances, not all.

The Big Picture

The subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) with Sen. Adam B. Schiff (D-CA) as ranking member, holds a Copyright Office oversight hearing every Congress.

This one carried unusual weight. The Copyright Office launched a comprehensive AI initiative in 2023 and reviewed more than 10,000 public comments before issuing a multi-part report. Part three concluded that the use of copyrighted works to train generative AI systems "likely qualifies as fair use in some circumstances, but not in others."

That finding drew the ire of the White House, which fired Perlmutter days after the report's release. A federal appeals court reinstated her in September 2025. The Supreme Court, in March 2026, declined to hear Thaler v. Perlmutter, leaving the Copyright Office's position on AI output copyright intact: purely AI-generated content receives no copyright protection.

That ruling created a legislative vacuum that Congress is now under pressure to fill. Meanwhile, the bipartisan Blockbeard Act, introduced by Tillis, Schiff, Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-DE), and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), would allow courts to issue no-fault injunctions against foreign piracy websites. Over 40 countries already have similar mechanisms.

What They're Saying

The hearing was notably collegial, with bipartisan co-sponsorship on multiple bills. But pointed exchanges surfaced the stakes.

On the DMCA's limits against foreign piracy:

On AI and creator rights:

  • Sen. Adam B. Schiff (D-CA): "We watched as AI models are trained on vast troves of copyrighted data, often without the consent or compensation of the original owners."
  • Schiff pressed Perlmutter on AI copyrightability: if a studio produced an entirely AI-generated animated film, could others copy it freely? Perlmutter confirmed: "Probably those portions of it that did not involve the human contribution could be copied from a copyright perspective." She added that a human who "selects, coordinates, and arranges" AI output can qualify for protection, but purely machine-generated content cannot.

On the Copyright Office's independence:

  • Sen. Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI) raised Trump's attempted firing directly: "President Trump tried to illegally fire you." She asked Perlmutter to speak to the value of the office remaining within the legislative branch. Perlmutter, choosing her words carefully, emphasized the office's 150-year history as "nonpartisan apolitical experts" and warned that any move to relocate the office "would inevitably result in additional cost and disruption."
  • Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) was more direct: "President Trump actually tried to install Todd Blanch as the librarian of Congress. Now that power grab failed, but it was a clear assault on the legislative branch nonetheless."

On the Supreme Court's Cox v. Sony decision, which Perlmutter described as having "changed the landscape dramatically for secondary liability in the copyright space," she told Sen. Hirono that the ruling "has definitely altered the incentives for online service providers to take steps to curb infringement" and suggested, "this might be an appropriate moment for a legislative response."

Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) extracted a blunt concession on AI transparency. He asked whether, absent the ability to discover if their work was used to train AI models, artists "basically lose any protection that copyright is intended to provide." Perlmutter replied: "Yes, I agree that this needs to be dealt with." She endorsed the TRAINE Act, introduced by Welch and Blackburn, as "a very creative idea" for using subpoenas to compel disclosure of AI training data.

Political Stakes

Perlmutter was fired by the executive branch, fought her way back through the courts, and testified before Congress, whose institutional independence she had been invoked to protect. Her legal status remains subject to further challenge.

For the Trump administration, the hearing reinforced a politically uncomfortable image: having sided with major AI companies against creators, artists, musicians, and authors, the White House now faces a bipartisan congressional coalition moving in the opposite direction. The administration's March 2026 National AI Policy Framework declared that AI training on copyrighted material does not violate copyright law, but explicitly acknowledged "arguments to the contrary exist" and deferred to the courts. That deference is increasingly insufficient for lawmakers watching roughly 100 AI-related copyright lawsuits work their way through the judiciary.

For Tillis, the stakes are personal and electoral. He faces re-election in 2026 and is shepherding bipartisan legislation that implicitly rebukes a same-party president's firing of a legislative-branch official. A successful Blockbeard Act would be a signature achievement. Failure would leave creators, the RIAA, and the Motion Picture Association (all vocal supporters) without a promised remedy. For Schiff, newly elected in 2024 and representing California's entertainment industry, the congressional copyright hearing is a natural platform. He is co-sponsoring the CLEAR Act with Sen. Curtis to mandate transparency in AI training data, and co-sponsoring the Blockbeard Act. Both bills give him a bipartisan record on creator protection.

The Copyright Office's own guidance on AI complicates the legislative picture.

Perlmutter told Sen. Hirono that legislating on fair use in the AI context is "very difficult" and that "licensing markets are developing in the interim," suggesting the market may resolve some disputes before Congress can. She also indicated that the fair use doctrine "still seems to be adequately dealing with some of the issues involved in AI training" and that legislative action may be "potentially premature." That caution is a significant check on the urgency some members expressed.

The Re:Create Coalition has formally opposed the Blockbeard Act, arguing that site-blocking threatens the open internet. And the Copyright Office's fee increase proposal (seeking a more than 40 percent average increase, with some fees rising more than 200 percent, for the first time since 2020) drew scrutiny from Sen. Coons, who pressed Perlmutter on the rationale. She explained that inflation and IT cost increases had flipped the office's funding ratio from 60 percent fee-funded to 40 percent appropriations-funded, reversing a decades-long pattern.

What's Next

Tillis closed the hearing by noting he has "236 more days in this job" and urged the Copyright Office to flag any additional areas where Congress should act before the end of the 119th Congress. The subcommittee will keep the record open for one week for additional written submissions and may submit questions for the record.

The Blockbeard Act is the most advanced legislative vehicle, with four co-sponsors spanning both parties. The No Fakes Act, championed by Blackburn and Coons, awaits a markup before the full Judiciary Committee. Perlmutter indicated the office will soon issue recommendations on the Music Modernization Act's blanket compulsory license designations. The enterprise copyright system's final registration component (replacing a nearly 20-year-old online system) is still in development, with full delivery contingent on additional fiscal year 2028 funding.

The Bottom Line:

With the Trump administration aligned with AI industry interests, the courts still sorting through a hundred-plus copyright cases, and a bipartisan Senate coalition pushing creator protections, the Copyright Office sits at the center of one of the most consequential IP battles in a generation, and its director just testified to prove she's still there.

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