What The Hell America!

The attempted entry came two days after Trump fired Shira Perlmutter, the director of the Copyright Office. Perlmutter had served in the role since October 2020, but her exit came one day after the agency published a 108-page “pre-publication” report questioning the legality of utilizing copyrighted materials to train artificial intelligence.

Copyright lawyers who spoke with Wired described the report—and its premature release—as outside the norm for the agency. But the report’s determination was highly anticipated, as growth in Silicon Valley currently rests on the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and its ability to steal information from publishers, news outlets, artists, musicians, and countless other professions.

The nation’s Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden also received the boot earlier last week. She was the first woman and the first Black person to serve in the role. Speaking with reporters Friday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed Hayden’s removal on the librarian’s “pursuit of DEI” and for “putting inappropriate books in the library for children,” claiming that Hayden’s appointment “did not fit the needs of the American people.