What initially appeared to be a power play by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to take over the US Copyright Office by having Donald Trump remove the officials in charge has now backfired in spectacular fashion, as Trump’s acting replacements are known to be unfriendly — and even downright hostile — to the tech industry. When Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden last week and Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter over the weekend, it was seen as another move driven by the tech wing of the Republican Party — especially in light of the Copyright Office releasing a pre-publication report saying some kinds of generative AI training would not be considered fair use. And when two men showed up at the Copyright Office inside the Library of Congress carrying letters purporting to appoint them to acting leadership positions, the DOGE takeover appeared to be complete.But those two men, Paul Perkins and Brian Nieves, were not DOGE at all, but instead approved by the MAGA wing of the Trump coalition that aims to put tech companies in check. Perkins, now the supposed acting Register of Copyrights, is an eight-year veteran of the DOJ who served in the first Trump administration prosecuting fraud cases. Nieves, the putative acting deputy librarian, is currently at the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, having previously been a lawyer on the House Judiciary Committee, where he worked with Rep. Jim Jordan on Big Tech investigations. And Todd Blanche, the putative Acting Librarian of Congress who would be their boss, is a staunch Trump ally who represented him during his 2024 Manhattan criminal trial, and is now the Deputy Attorney General overseeing the DOJ’s side in the Google Search remedies case. As one government affairs lobbyist told The Verge, Blanche is “there to stick it to tech.”The appointments of Blanche, Perkins, and Nieves are the result of furious lobbying over the weekend by the conservative content industry — as jealously protective of its copyrighted works as any other media companies — as well as populist Republican lawmakers and lawyers, all enraged that Silicon Valley had somehow persuaded Trump to fire someone who’d recently criticized AI companies.Sources speaking to The Verge are convinced the firings were a tech industry power play led by Elon Musk and David SacksThe populists were particularly rankled over Perlmutter’s removal from the helm of the Copyright Office, which happened the day after the agency released a pre-publication version of its report on the use of copyrighted material in training generative AI systems. Sources speaking to The Verge are convinced the firings were a tech industry power play led by Elon Musk and “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar” David Sacks, meant to eliminate any resistance to AI companies using copyrighted material to train models without having to pay for it.“You can say, well, we have to compete with China. No, we don’t have to steal content to compete with China. We don’t have slave labor to compete with China. It’s a bullshit argument,” Mike Davis, the president of the Article III project and a key antitrust advisor to Trump, told The Verge. “It’s not fair use under the copyright laws to take everyone’s content and have the big tech platforms monetize it. That’s the opposite of fair use. That’s a copyright infringement.”It’s the rare time that MAGA world is in agreement with the Democratic Party, which has roundly condemned the firings of Hayden and Perlmutter, and also zeroed in on the Musk-Sacks faction as the instigator.In a press release, Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) characterized the hundred-plus-page report, the third installment of a series that the office has put out on copyright and artificial intelligence, as “refus[ing] to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.” Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who told The Verge in an emailed statement that the president had no power to fire either Hayden or Perlmutter, said, “This all looks like another way to pay back Elon Musk and the other AI billionaires who backed Trump’s campaign.”The agency’s interpretation of what is or isn’t fair use does not have binding force on the courtsPublications like the AI report essentially lay out how the Copyright Office interprets copyright law. But the agency’s interpretation of what is or isn’t fair use does not have binding force on the courts, so a report like this one functions mostly as expert commentary and reference material. However, the entire AI industry is built on an expansive interpretation of copyright law that’s currently being tested in the courts — a situation that’s created dire need for exactly this sort of expert commentary. The AI report applies the law of fair use to different kinds of AI training and usage, concluding that although outcomes might differ case by case, “making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries.” But far from advising drastic action in response to what the Office believes is rampant copyright infringement, the report instead states that “government intervention would be premature at this time,” given that licensing agreements are being made across various sectors.“Now tech bros are going to steal creators’ copyrights for AP profits”The unoffending nature of the report made Perlmutter’s removal all the more alarming to the MAGA ideologues in Trump’s inner circle, who saw this as a clear power grab, and were immediately vocal about it. “Now tech bros are going to steal creators’ copyrights for AP profits,” Davis posted immediately on Truth Social, along with a link to a CBS story about Perlmutter’s firing. “This is 100% unacceptable.” Curiously, just after Davis published the post, Trump reposted it, link and all. None of Trump’s purported appointees have a particularly relevant background for their new jobs — but they are certainly not DOGE people and, generally speaking, are not the kind of people that generative AI proponents would want in the office. And for now, this counts as a political win for the anti-tech populists, even if nothing further happens. “Sometimes when you make a pitch to leadership to get rid of someone, the person who comes in after isn’t any better,” said a source familiar with the dynamic between the White House and both sides of the copyright issue. “You don’t necessarily get to name the successor and fire someone, and so in many cases, I’ve seen people get pushed out the door and the replacement is even worse.”RelatedThe speed of the firings and subsequent power struggle, however, have underscored the brewing constitutional crisis sparked by Trump’s frequent firing of independent agency officials confirmed by Congress. The Library of Congress firings, in particular, reach well past the theory of executive power claimed by the White House and into even murkier territory. It’s legally dubious whether the Librarian of Congress can be removed by the president, as the Library, a legislative branch agency that significantly predates the administrative state, does not fit neatly into the modern-day legal framework of federal agencies. (Of course, everything about the law is in upheaval even where agencies do fit the framework.) Regardless, the law clearly states that the Librarian of Congress — not the president — appoints the Register of Copyrights.At the moment, the Library of Congress has not received any direction from Congress on how to move forward. The constitutional crisis — one of many across the federal government — remains ongoing. Elon Musk and xAI did not respond to a request for comment.Additional reporting by Sarah Jeong.See More: Source: https://www.theverge.com/politics/666179/maga-elon-musk-sacks-copyright-office-perlmutter #elon #musks #apparent #power #play #the #copyright #office #completely #backfired

Both Canada and the United States have deep-seated affordability problems, but only the former is doing anything substantial about it. Forthcoming housing cooperatives at 2444 Eglinton Avenue in Toronto, and in Upper Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia, are helping put a dent in Canada’s affordable housing shortage. Vancouver’s home prices today are close to $1 million, and rental prices in Toronto are equally astronomical. To buck this trend, Canada’s Co-operative Housing Development Program (CHDP) unlocked $1.5 billion in federal financing to support new cooperative housing. This is all happening as part of Canada’s National Housing Strategy, a $115 billion plan to boost affordability.  “In Toronto, the housing crisis is as severe as it’s ever been,” UT Daniels professor Keisha St. Louis-McBurnie, a Toronto-based urban planner at Monumental, told AN.  “We’ve seen real growth in housing encampments, especially during COVID-19,” St. Louis-McBurnie said. “There’s been very limited new transitional and supportive housing across [Toronto]. Households are getting priced out of the market, including professional middle-income ones. Folks who are low-income that require the most housing support are not able to access new affordable housing, especially in consideration to what’s getting built in Toronto.” A Brutalist housing co-op on Eglinton Avenue in Toronto (Ken Lund/Flickr/CC BY 2.0) Claire Weisz’s office, WXY, as of this year has locations in New York and Toronto. Weisz recently spoke at the Canadian Club Toronto, in a round table moderated by Alex Bozikovic, about urbanism. “Huge troves of affordable housing in New York has, in recent years, been taken from people who can’t afford down payments on co-ops,” Weisz told AN. “We’ve sacrificed so much. Some organizations have tried to stop this, but without policy support from the city, it’s really in vain.” “My big worry is that right now, like Toronto, New York is starting to be like the rest of the U.S. and rely on developer-led for-profits, versus not-for-profits,” Weisz added. “There needs to be a reawakening of not-for-profit development coalitions.” “The Co-operative Housing Sector is Booming” The Canadian National Housing Strategy’s longterm goal is to build 156,000 affordable units and repair over 298,000 existing ones. Housing cooperatives are getting built all over Canada as part of the program, from British Columbia, Ontario, and Nova Scotia. Planning departments are prioritizing the needs of First Nations communities and Black Canadians to help rectify past injustices. This is happening as rent prices skyrocket, and Toronto’s skyline is populated with new landmarks by Frank Gehry, Studio Gang, BIG, and others. Cooperative housing was first built in Canada in the 1930s. Regent Park in Toronto was the country’s first public housing campus, finished in 1949. This legacy continued through the 1960s and ’70s, when radical co-ops like Rochdale College and Neill-Wycik were built for University of Toronto students. Willow Park Housing Co-op (1966) went up in Winnipeg thanks to CHF Canada, a joint initiative by the Canadian Labour Congress and the Co-operative Union of Canada. The New Democratic Party (NDP) constructed abundant cooperative housing in Vancouver. Milton Park got built in Montreal in the 1980s. Between 1973 and 1993, CHF Canada built a total 92,000 cooperatively-owned units. (This history was captured by Leslie Coles in Under Construction: A History of Co-operative Housing in Canada.) All this momentum was brought to a halt during successive Brian Mulroney and Jean Chrétien Premierships, however, when government support for supportive housing was cut, much like what was happening in the U.S. at that time under the Clinton administration with the Faircloth Amendment. Regent Park’s original architecture was demolished in 2005 as part of the Regent Park Revitalization Plan, and replaced with a private, mixed-income community. (Kevin Costain/Wikimedia Commons /CC BY 2.0) A regime of state-imposed austerity ensued, leading up to the affordability crisis both Canada and the U.S. have today. Unlike the United States, however, Canada seems to have learned from its past mistakes. Thanks to Canada’s Co-operative Housing Development Program, eight co-ops are getting built right now. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow has prioritized new affordable housing construction and land trusts, and is doing much to fight gentrification. BC Builds is an initiative helping fast track cooperative housing in Vancouver City Council. “Since the 1990s there’s been a shift in liberal to conservative and neoliberal federal governments,” St. Louis-McBurnie said. “This resulted in reduced public investment in significant social programs, including public and not-for-profit housing. These successive governments devolved responsibility for funding affordable housing to provincial governments across the country, Ontario in particular. Places like Regent Park now have a public-private partnership model, meaning it’s now on the private market. Alexandra Park is going through a similar privatization process.” “But now, there’s interest in alternatives” to market rate development St. Louis-McBurnie affirmed, “and the co-operative housing sector is booming.” Provinces and cities are also implementing “communal land trust models to support the scaling and retaining of assets,” she said. “They’re trying to figure out ways for bringing independently-owned co-ops into the land trust model.” Housing as Human Right The largest co-op underway in Canada today is 2444 Eglinton Avenue by Henriquez Partners and Claude Cormier + Associés. The Toronto development will yield 918 homes, including 612 affordable, rent-geared-to-income (RGI) units. Retail offerings will be sited at the base level. From afar, 2444 Eglinton Avenue will stand out thanks to its polychromatic porthole windows. Further afield in Perth, Ontario, 38 new cooperative units will be built. Farther east in Upper Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia, a co-operative housing development will yield 136 row house units primarily for Black Canadians. That project is happening through a partnership between the Upper Hammonds Plains Community Land Trust and the Upper Hammonds Plains Housing Co-operative. Curtis Whiley, a sixth-generation African Nova Scotian, is steering the housing cooperative project in Upper Hammonds. Meanwhile in New Minas, Nova Scotia, there will be 32 more cooperative homes. Rendering of 2444 Eglinton Avenue Co-ops (Courtesy Henriquez Partners) Africville was a close-knit Black community in Halifax located on Treat 1 territory destroyed by the City of Halifax in the 1960s. Today, land trusts like the one in Nova Scotia are effective means for establishing housing secure communities of color. The Toronto Chinatown Land Trust likewise empowers people to stay in place, an outfit helmed by Chiyi Tam who is a planner and UT Daniels faculty member. “We have not seen any investment like this, I would say, in terms of housing development almost exclusively for Black communities in Canada’s history,” St. Louis-McBurnie said. Hogan’s Alley’s Black community was displaced by the Vancouver government to make way for the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts in 1971. Now, members of the NDP and Hogan’s Alley Society—a Black-led, not-for-profit developer of Afrocentric affordable housing—are working together to shore up Black land stewardship in the old neighborhood and help rectify the past injustice. “Transferring land over to the Hogan Alley land trust will allow for the Black community to return and for greater autonomy in housing construction,” St. Louis-McBurnie added. “What If We Built a New Co-op City in Brooklyn?” Federal spending was allocated in the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to dismantle highways that ripped through inner cities and destroyed African American neighborhoods, like I-81 in Syracuse, New York. But this week, House GOP members moved to cancel the I-81 highway removal project. The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 national budget has slashed spending on projects that “fall outside [the President’s] new priorities” and “promote radical equity policies,” the White House said. Is it possible for architects, politicians, and planners in the U.S. to replicate Canada’s success given the current political climate?  It seems, for now, it would have to happen with aggressive leadership at the city and state levels—trade unions and nonprofits would also have to step up. This is already taking place, for instance, at Penn South, a sprawling Mitchell-Lama housing cooperative in Manhattan by the United Housing Foundation (UHF). Today, Bernheimer Architecture (BA) and the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust are helping upgrade the handsome midcentury campus. Penn South’s rehabilitation is in conjunction with BA, the AFL-CIO, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). “Penn South is a very unique campus, and its needs are different from most other campuses in New York City,” Andy Bernheimer told AN. “NYSERDA is helping us inform design and construction moving forward, which will entail reskinning the buildings and making them more energy efficient.” Co-op City is situated on a sprawling 320-acre site in the north Bronx. (Zara Pfeifer) Co-op City shopping plaza (Zara Pfeifer) In New York today, mayoral candidates are increasingly interested in revisiting the Mitchell-Lama Program’s success, a UHF campaign that built 135,000 cooperative housing units between 1955 and 1978, like Penn South and the Bronx’s Co-op City, another historic campus by Herman Jessor. In Albany, New York State elected officials have proposed a new Social Housing Development Authority, which would allocate government spending toward public housing, co-ops, and land trusts to battle gentrification. “I don’t think there’s enough money to simply restart a program like Mitchell-Lama, as far as I can tell,” Weisz told AN. “But if you look at all of the older Mitchell-Lamas flipping to the market, it’s clear we need to preserve the ones that are left, and there needs to be a new generation of co-ops. All over the city, when people have to pay market rates instead of mortgages, they’re rent burdened.” Homes for Living is a new book by Jonathan Tarleton that speaks to the tumultuous privatization of New York’s cooperative housing stock, a burgeoning problem. “Maybe there’s a way to build a funding and oversight mechanism for existing co-ops worried about going under water, and for households to sign up for a program that helps them to stay in [Mitchell-Lama],” Weisz elaborated. “Maybe there could even be a program for rental apartments to get into that program?” WXY is currently working on a Mitchell-Lama campus in the Bronx, Stevenson Commons, together with Habitat for Humanity. The goal is to maintain Stevenson Common’s affordability with rent-stabilized flats at very low rates. Parking lots at Stevenson Commons were rezoned to allow for new housing, which helps maintain affordability, while new public spaces and tennis clubs were added. There will be incentives to help seniors age in place, and for multigenerational households. Rochdale Village in Queens (Zara Pfeifer) Weisz sees opportunities to finance cooperative housing with ulterior means, like capital raised from Habitat for Humanity, but also congestion pricing. “We should be using new lines and TOD to actually support neighborhoods and co-ops, and people that are ultimately the ones who stay and support neighborhoods,” she said. “Why not subsidize co-op structures? The only way to do that is if there’s city-owned land, because, otherwise, the land cost is so expensive, you have to develop it at market rate.” “There’s a lot of city sites that have been identified for housing,” Weisz noted. “There’s all sorts of sites in the city’s hands right beside the Manhattan Bridge, for instance, or along the BQE. All of those sites could become new co-ops. What if we built a new Co-op City in Brooklyn?” Source: https://www.archpaper.com/2025/05/canada-cooperative-housing/ #the #canadian #government #building #housing #cooperatives #again #can #follow #suit