SAA Statement on the Firing of the Register of Copyrights

May 19, 2025—The Society of American Archivists sent the following op-ed to The Chicago Tribune regarding the White House’s firing of the Library of Congress’s Register of Copyrights:

The Society of American Archivists wishes to express its extreme concern with the recent firing of the Register of Copyrights. The current administration, as reflected in its 1776 Project proposal, claims to value historical precedent reaching back to the founding of this country. Instead, this action elbows aside the Legislative Branch to which the Constitution confers the power to create copyrights. Thus, the administration’s summary firing of the Library of Congress’s Register of Copyrights compromises the public trust in an office that has been operating within Constitutionally established rights for over 150 years.

The authority for the existence of US copyright law comes from Article I of the Constitution—the Article that creates the Legislative Branch and enumerates its powers. The Founders designed US copyright law to remedy the faults of the British system and to support the generation of new works without depending on aristocratic patronage. The result—an American copyright law that supports a vibrant culture and places the expressive sector beyond the reach of the state.

The copyright provision in Article I, Section 8 was designed to balance the rights of creators to control their works with the rights of the public to have access to a rich and varied supply of creative work—a balance designed to “promote the progress of science and useful arts.” It has been the responsibility of the Library of Congress for over 150 years to make sure the copyright system functions to achieve the Founder’s goal.

So what does the Library of Congress’s Copyright Office do? It provides a non-partisan, critical, and technical role for maintaining rules and mechanisms for registering ownership, record-keeping, defining processes needed for infringement claims to be handled by the courts, and providing guidance to inform the public of the rules that make the copyright system work.

The Copyright Office also plays a key role in researching how copyright law can adapt and remain dynamic in new times. The Office’s substantive and thoughtful studies over the decades have aided Congress in updating the law for new types of creative works in an ever-changing technological environment—ranging from the advent of motion pictures in the early 20th century to the digital platforms of the last 30 years.

A May 14 letter to President Trump, from Senators Schiff, Hirono, Durbin, Coons, Whitehorse, and Welch put it succinctly: “The Copyright Office, as part of the broader intellectual property system supporting American innovation, must remain independent. Undermining that independence for political or commercial gain threatens to do lasting damage not only to the Office itself, but to the rights of artists, creators, and innovators across the country.”

Therefore, the Society of American Archivists, whose members collectively steward billions of copyrighted works, calls for the recognition of the authority of the Legislative Branch and the immediate restoration of the Register of Copyrights to the position from which she was dismissed on May 11, 2025.

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SAA encourages its members to contact your senators and representatives to tell them this matters to you, and that you want them to assert their Article I prerogative and defend the robust and global standard that is the American copyright system.