This week I’ve been talking to experts and insiders in the wild world of the U.S. copyright system. Because I wanted to get a gut check. After President Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden back in May, and then fired Shira Perlmutter, the head of the Copyright Office (which exists within the LoC), I wanted to know, is this weird? Obviously, a lot of goings-on in Washington right now are unprecedented, but something about this whole affair seemed particularly odd to me, and I wanted to see if that was true of people who spent years involved in copyright law/advocacy.

Short answer – yes, it’s very odd. You can read my full piece detailing the latest drama at the Copyright Office here. But to sum up, Perlmutter’s firing and subsequent lawsuit against the president are happening just as the Copyright Office published its big report on whether or not using copyrighted materials to train AI models counts as “fair use,” a legal rule which basically covers free use of copyrighted materials in certain cases.

It’d be a lot easier to draw a narrative here if the report was a bombshell, barn-burning critique on AI, or an equally strong take vociferously for the free-flow of ideas. But instead, the report is pretty even-handed, saying that in some instances, using copyrighted materials to train AI would count as fair use, and in others, it wouldn’t. Which, from the people I talked to, seemed to be reflective of Perlmutter’s reputation in the copyright space. As Keith Kupferschmid, the CEO of the Copyright Alliance, told me, “Perlmutter was beloved whether you agreed with her or not, because she always did the hard work.”

There are dozens of lawsuits working their way through the courts right now involving copyright and AI usage. Some involve authors and publishers suing AI companies, accusing them of stealing the copyrighted works of authors to train AI models. It remains to be seen if/how the report will be used by the legal teams on either side of these lawsuits – which is something I’ll be keeping my eye on. I know this is a wonkier topic than what we usually cover here, but I think it’s important. Not just because it involves authors and publishers. But we’re all “content creators” in some way – whether we’re posting memes on Facebook, or putting together sports edits on TikTok or writing a books newsletter. We’re all a part of the web that is the copyright system, so this’ll affect us all, whether we want to or not.

Is any of this raising your eyebrow? Are you concerned about certain aspects of copyright law and AI models? Are you a higher up at the Copyright Office and would love to record an on the record interview answering all my questions? (hey, a reporter can dream, right?). Hit us up at bookoftheday@npr.org.