The Librarian of Congress Should Support the Founders’ Goal of Protecting American Creators

President Donald Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden on May 9. Since then, he’s announced that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will assume the role of acting librarian of Congress.

Trump’s ultimate decision of whom to appoint as the librarian of Congress is of more consequence than people might think.

The classic image of a librarian as someone whose only job is to assist young students in an old, quiet building does not apply to the librarian of Congress. The Copyright Office is housed in the Library of Congress, and thus the librarian of Congress has administrative power over the head of the copyright, known as the Registrar of Copyright. Thus, the librarian of Congress has considerable sway over copyright policy in the United States.

In the Founding Era, the protection of copyrights (and patents) formed a key part of American exceptionalism. Indeed, the copyright and patent clause in the Constitution is the only place in the original Constitution where the Founders used the word “right.”

There, they wrote that Congress is authorized to secure “the exclusive Right” to authors and inventors. This was the first time a country’s founding document authorized the government to protect these vital intellectual property rights.

The importance of copyrights and patents was reaffirmed by the Founders immediately after ratification of the new federal government. In his first address to Congress, President George Washington called on Congress to promptly enact both copyright and patent laws. The First Congress responded, enacting the Copyright Act of 1790, defining copyright as a fundamental property right in federal law and protecting it under the Constitution.

Since then, reliable and effective copyright protections have been a key part of the explosive growth in the creative industries in the United States—which contribute trillions to U.S. gross domestic product year in and year out.

Copyrighted works are also “a crown jewel of U.S. exports, contributing significantly to the positive balance of trade”—thereby promoting U.S. values worldwide and making the U.S. a global cultural leader.

Whether this success will continue depends in part on the Librarian of Congress. Unfortunately, librarians and their professional associations—such as the American Library Association—have followed the same intellectual trajectory as most academic institutions in the U.S.

Librarians have embraced a radical leftist ideology that includes opposing vital intellectual property rights in copyright. Some of these anti-copyright activists even refer to themselves as the “copyleft.”

In the past, librarians of Congress recognized the vital importance of copyright to both creators (in securing the fruits of their labors) and the public (which benefits from the cultural marketplace copyright enables). But Hayden aligned the Library of Congress more with the radical rejection of copyright by librarians and their professional associations.

In fact, one of Hayden’s first official acts as Librarian of Congress after she was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2016 was to fire then-Registrar of Copyrights Maria Pallente—an action defended by copyleft academics. Then-Deputy Director of The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center Alden Abbott expressed concern at the time that this was done at the behest of “Silicon Valley firms and the Obama administration to weaken American copyright law.”

Another example in 2023 was an anti-copyright letter sent to Congress by the Association of Research Libraries along with other library associations and anti-copyright activists. They argued that Big Tech companies programming AI systems should be allowed to pirate copyrighted works.

The Library of Congress is a member of the Association of Research Libraries. It was troubling that Hayden permitted the Library of Congress—the world’s largest collection of American copyrighted works and the official collection of the U.S. government—to be associated with this radical rejection of copyright protections.

In sum, it was sensible for Trump to fire Hayden. Now, it’s crucial that he nominate a Librarian of Congress who truly understands and appreciates the role of copyright as an intellectual property right.

As the Supreme Court has recognized: “By establishing a marketable right to the use of one’s expression, copyright supplies the economic incentive to create and disseminate ideas.”

The Founders were prescient in authorizing Congress to secure copyright in the Constitution, thereby setting the stage for America’s world-leading creative economy.

We cannot risk another librarian of Congress who aligns either with the copyleft or, just as bad, with the all-too-prevalent view of some tech bros (like Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey) that we should “delete all IP law.”

America’s economy depends on it.

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