No One Is in Charge at the US Copyright Office

Status and Role of the US Copyright Office

• Several comments note that staff cuts or leadership chaos at the Copyright Office do not change the law; enforcement is primarily through courts and private platforms (e.g., YouTube’s automated systems), not the Office itself.
• The Office is seen mainly as a registry that helps identify rights holders and streamline licensing in an otherwise confusing landscape.
• Comparisons are drawn to the Patent Office: under-resourcing can worsen outcomes (more junk patents), not “deprecate” the underlying regime.

Is Copyright Being “Deprecated”? For Whom?

• Some celebrate a perceived decline of copyright as overdue, calling it oppressive and rent-seeking.
• Others argue it’s only being weakened “for billionaires”: large players flout IP with impunity, while smaller creators still face liability and fewer protections.
• There’s concern that assuming copyright is dying is risky; a future administration could aggressively re-enforce it.

AI, Open Source, and Copyright-Washing

• A thread of anger from open source authors: their work is used to train AI models, then effectively resold to them without credit or compensation.
• Some maintainers have stopped releasing new open source projects or are trying to monetize privately, seeing LLMs as a way to bypass GPL/AGPL “in spirit.”
• Others argue that AI plus weakened copyright will further empower big firms to appropriate and scale others’ work.

Abolish Copyright vs. Protect Creators

• Anti-copyright voices want “may the best implementation win,” preferring competition over monopolies.
• Creators (e.g., novelists) ask how they get paid if anyone can freely copy; suggested answers are patronage and employment.
• Critics say this leads back to feudal-style patronage: creators dependent on richer patrons or employers, with severe power imbalances.
• There is debate over whether patronage/subscriptions are truly inequitable, and whether work without paying supporters meaningfully “creates value.”
• Many argue copyright, though flawed, remains one of the few tools enabling smaller creators and startups to resist simple expropriation by richer entities.

Political and Constitutional Concerns

• The article’s account of attempts to replace the Librarian of Congress and Copyright Register sparks discussion of constitutional limits on presidential power over legislative-branch-adjacent offices.
• Commenters reference recess appointments and recent politics, with some expressing fear of expanding executive power and others calling those fears speculative.

Class, Capitalism, and Incentives

• One perspective frames copyright as historically serving the ruling class; with AI, it becomes less useful to big capital and more harmful to small creators.
• Broader worries emerge about “big capital eating small capital,” job elimination, and an economy drifting toward more concentrated wealth and fewer protections for individual creators.