Shira Perlmutter
{{short description|US Register of Copyrights 2020-2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2025}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Shira Perlmutter
| image = Shira Perlmutter, 2025, United States Register of Copyright.tif
| office = 14th Register of Copyrights
| appointer = Carla Hayden
| term_start = October 25, 2020
| term_end = May 10, 2025 (disputed){{cite news |last1=Tully-McManus |first1=Katherine |title=GOP Leaders Draw the Line at Trumps Library of Congress Takeover |url=https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/14/library-of-congress-trump-takeover-carla-hayden-00349275 |work=Politico |date=May 14, 2025}}
| predecessor = Maria Strong (acting)
| successor = Paul Perkins
(acting, disputed)
| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1956}}
| birth_place =
| death_date =
| death_place =
| relatives = Saul Perlmutter (brother)
| education = Harvard University (BA)
University of Pennsylvania (JD)
}}
Shira Perlmutter (born 1956) is an American attorney and law professor who has served as the 14th register of copyrights of the United States Copyright Office in the Library of Congress, since 2020.{{Efn|As of May 25, 2025, Perlmutter is still listed as the Register by the Copyright Office website after President Donald Trump ordered her to be replaced by an associate deputy attorney general, Paul Perkins. However, this is an ongoing issue that is not resolved after congressional intervention and pending federal litigation. Perlmutter and Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden were fired by Trump as part of Trumps ongoing eforts to replace large portions of the federal government.{{cite news |last1=Miller |first1=Maya C. |last2=Barrett |first2=Devlin |title=Trump Installs Top Justice Dept. Official at Library of Congress, Prompting a Standoff |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/us/politics/trump-library-of-congress.html |access-date=May 25, 2025 |work=The New York Times |date=May 12, 2025}}{{cite news |last1=Svirnovskiy |first1=Gregory |title=Ousted head of Copyright Office challenges Trump administration in court |url=https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/22/copyright-office-challenges-trump-administration-00367020 |access-date=May 25, 2025 |work=Politico |date=May 22, 2025}}{{cite news |last1=Limbong |first1=Andrew |title=Fired Copyright Office head sues Trump administration over removal |url=https://www.npr.org/2025/05/23/nx-s1-5408982/register-of-copyrights-lawsuit-trump |access-date=May 25, 2025 |work=NPR |date=May 22, 2025}}|name=controversy|group=note}} Before her appointment as register in 2020, Perlmutter led copyright and global law policy at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. In 1995, she was appointed to be the first associate register for policy and international affairs at the Copyright Office and was the copyright consultant for the Clinton administration's advisory council on the National Information Infrastructure from 1994–5.
In the private sector, Perlmutter was the executive vice president of policy and international affairs at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a music industry association representing recording studios.{{Cite web |date=n.d. |title=Shira Perlmutter |url=https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/people/shira-perlmutter |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250526054034/https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/people/shira-perlmutter |archive-date=May 26, 2025 |access-date=May 26, 2025 |website=Faculty of Law |publisher=University of Oxford}} Prior to that, she was associate general counsel and vice president for intellectual property at Time Warner. Prior to her notable roles, she practiced law at the Paul, Weiss law firm in New York{{Cite press release |title=Shira Perlmutter Appointed US Register of Copyrights |date=September 21, 2020 |publisher=Library Copyright Alliance |url=https://www.librarycopyrightalliance.org/documents/united-states-documents/other-matters/shira-perlmutter-appointed-us-register-of-copyrights/ |access-date=May 25, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201004141108/https://www.librarycopyrightalliance.org/documents/united-states-documents/other-matters/shira-perlmutter-appointed-us-register-of-copyrights/ |archive-date=October 4, 2020}} where she practiced commercial litigation.{{Cite news |last=Labi |first=Aisha |date=Summer 2023 |title=Directing I.P. in D.C. |url=https://journal.law.upenn.edu/issue/summer-2023/directing-ip-in-dc/ |work=The Journal |publisher=Penn Carey Law School Alumni of the University of Pennsylvania |page=36 |volume=58 |issue=1}}
As an academic, she is a research fellow of the University of Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre. From 1990 until 1995, she was a professor of law at the Catholic University of America teaching copyright, trademark, unfair competition, and international intellectual property law. Aside from academic journals articles and government reports, Perlmutter is the coauthor of a leading law school casebook on international intellectual property law and policy.
Both in public lecture and in her academic writing, Perlmutter says the American people desire copyright laws that make sense, are fair, and reflect technology currently in use. She argues that the failure of law to adapt quickly to technological change causes disruption to trade, inefficiencies, among other negative effects.{{Cite speech |last=Perlmutter |first=Shira |event=Dean William Callyhan Robinson Intellectual Property Lecture Series |title=From Paralysis to Progress: The (Useful) Art of Copyright Pragmatism |location=Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law |format=Youtube video |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvKJBjYc6lo |date=March 14, 2014 |access-date=May 25, 2025}}{{Cite journal |last=Perlmutter |first=Shira |date=2013 |title=From Paralysis to Progress: The (Useful) Art of Copyright Pragmatism |url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/jocoso61&div=30&id=&page= |journal=Journal of the Copyright Society of the United States of America |volume=61 |pages=561 |url-access=subscription}}
Early life and education
Shira Perlmutter was born in 1956 to Felice Davidson Perlmutter and Daniel Perlmutter. Her mother was a professor at Temple University in social work, nonprofit management, and social policy and her father was a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Pennsylvania.{{cite web |title=Directory – Daniel D. Perlmutter |url=https://directory.seas.upenn.edu/daniel-d-perlmutter/ |work=Penn Engineering, University of Pennsylvania}}{{Cite news |date=August 2011 |title=Social Work Honors Its Own at Reunion |url=http://bulletin.brynmawr.edu/archways/gsswsr-august-2011/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110930031939/http://bulletin.brynmawr.edu/archways/gsswsr-august-2011/ |archive-date=September 30, 2011 |work=Bryn Mawr College Alumnae Bulletin}} Her maternal grandfather, Samuel Davidson (1903–1989), emigrated from the Bessarabian town of Floreşti to Canada in 1919 and then, with her grandmother, Chaika Newman, to New York.{{cite web |date=2020-09-22 |title=Saul Perlmutter Biographical |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2011/perlmutter/biographical/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201008030422/https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2011/perlmutter/biographical/ |archive-date=2020-10-08 |access-date=2020-09-22 |website=The Nobel Foundation}}
Perlmutter and her two siblings, Tova and Saul, were raised in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia and educated at Quaker schools. Her brother, Saul Perlmutter, received the Nobel Prize in physics along with three others in 2011 for their discovery that that the universe's expansion is accelerating.
Perlmutter is a graduate of Harvard University, which awarded her an A.B. degree in linguistics. She earned her J. D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.{{cite web |date=2012-01-13 |title=Shira Perlmutter |url=https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/executive-biographies/shira-perlmutter |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150325223521/https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/executive-biographies/shira-perlmutter |archive-date=2015-03-25 |access-date=2020-09-21 |website=USPTO}}
Disputed dismissal
In 2020, she was appointed to head the United States Copyright Office by the librarian of Congress, who is the official overseeing that office since the creation in 1897. In 2025, Perlmutter was fired by order of the Trump administration. The firing came after Perlmutter and her office issued a lengthy report about artificial intelligence that is critical of arguments that the use of copyright material to train generative artificial intelligence might be fair use as conceptualized under the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C.) or existing case law,{{Cite web |last=Tully-McManus |first=Katherine |date=2025-05-10 |title=Trump fires top US copyright official |url=https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/10/trump-u-s-copyright-official-00340306 |access-date=2025-05-11 |website=Politico |language=en}}{{Cite news |last=Belanger |first=Ashley |date=May 12, 2025 |title=Copyright Office head fired after reporting AI training isn’t always fair use |url=https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/05/copyright-office-head-fired-after-reporting-ai-training-isnt-always-fair-use/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250512194251/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/05/copyright-office-head-fired-after-reporting-ai-training-isnt-always-fair-use/ |archive-date=May 12, 2025 |work=Ars Technica}} as claimed by those representing AI development firms that include Elon Musk's platform.{{Cite news |last=Kim |first=Seung Min |date=May 16, 2025 |title=Donald Trump’s Library of Congress fight is really about the separation of powers |url=https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-library-of-congress-capitol-hill-cd401629dbec487f778a8beb13761f65 |work=Associated Press}}{{Cite news |last=Kang |first=Cecilia |date=2024-01-25 |title=The Sleepy Copyright Office in the Middle of a High-Stakes Clash Over A.I. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/technology/ai-copyright-office-law.html |access-date=2025-05-26 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}
Perlmutter has sued to dispute the legality of the dismissal, as the register is appointed by, and responsible to, the Librarian of Congress.Smith, Dylan, [https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2025/05/23/shira-perlmutter-lawsuit/ Fired Copyright Office Head Shira Perlmutter Sues Trump Administration Over ‘Blatantly Unlawful’ Dismissal], Digital Music News, May 23, 2025
Congressman Joe Morelle criticized the firing, speculating that Perlmutter was fired because "she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk's efforts to mine troves of [copyright] works to train AI models".{{cite news |last=MacFarlane |first=Scott |date=May 10, 2025 |title=Trump fires director of U.S. Copyright Office, sources say |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-fires-director-of-u-s-copyright-office-shira-perlmutter-sources/ |access-date=May 11, 2025 |work=CBS}} Other members of Congress, both Republican and Democratic, have pushed back at the Trump administration about its authority to take control of Congress' establishments.{{Cite news |last=Miller |first=Maya C. |last2=Hulse |first2=Carl |date=2025-05-15 |title=Lawmakers in Both Parties Resist Trump’s Attempt to Seize Control of Their Library |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/us/politics/library-of-congress-trump.html |access-date=2025-05-26 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}
Earlier in the same week as the Perlmutter dismissal, the official who appointed Perlmutter to the office within the library, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, had been fired abruptly and without explanation by Trump, drawing similar criticism. As of 12 May 2025 new personnel for both positions have not been nominated. The Perlmutter lawsuit followed soon thereafter.
Notes
{{reflist|group=note}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{C-SPAN|33534}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perlmutter, Shira}}
Category:21st-century American women lawyers
Category:American women legal scholars
Category:American people of Moldovan-Jewish descent
Category:Harvard College alumni