Too Much TV: DOGE Is Set To Screw Hollywood Over AI

Hollywood is set to have its entire catalog of copyrighted materials used to train AI

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Friday, May 9th 2025:

THE AI PROBLEM HOLLYWOOD DOESN'T SEE COMING
If you ask nearly anyone in Hollywood what one of the biggest ongoing challenges facing the industry is right now, artificial intelligence - specifically generative AI - would be at the top of most people's list.

One of the core issues during last year's Hollywood strikes centered around the use of scripts and other copyrighted materials to train generative AI. There were also fears that studios would use that training to have AI "create" an idea that could be copyrighted and then "assigned" to a human writer. Thereby allowing studios to bypass the rights human writers would normally have when they create original ideas.

But studios also have their concerns. Every major studio and network has fought attempts by AI companies to license their copyrighted films and TV shows so they can be used to train these large generative AI systems. There is some short-term money to be made in the licensing, but no one has a sense of where that road leads and how it might impact the industry.

You likely haven't been paying a great deal of attention to what is going on at the Library of Congress this week. On the surface, it might sound like another story about members of DOGE and the Trump Administration attempting to take over another government department. But behind the scenes, this battle can easily turn into an existential threat to Hollywood's copyrights.

The Library Of Congress is the world's largest library, with an estimated 178 million books, films and video, audio recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections. The Library is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office.

Last Thursday, the Trump White House fired the head of the Library of Congress, Carla Hayden, who had held the job since 2016. The Administration claimed it was over DEI issues:

“There were quite concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a news conference Friday, referring to Trump’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion programs in government. “We don’t believe that she was serving the interests of the American taxpayer well, so she has been removed from her position, and the president is well within his rights to do that.”

Now it's worth noting that not only are children not allowed access to the library's holdings (you must be 16 to use it), but the library naturally would include a wide range of materials given the way the collections are put together.

The initial hot-take from critics of the Administration was that her firing might have had something to do with the fact that she is the first woman and first African American to lead the library. And that in recent years, she has spearheaded efforts to increase the library's outreach to minority communities.

And then on Saturday, the White House fired Shira Perlmutter, the head of the U.S. Copyright Office, according to an email acting librarian of Congress Robert Newlen sent to his staff. The reason for the termination isn't clear, although several people I spoke with at the office today suspected the move might have been prompted in part by a 100-page report Perlmutter's office released earlier this month, which warned of the dangers of copyrighted materials being used to train AI systems.

So what does this have to do with the television and movie industries? It's all about using AI to scrape every bit of copyrighted material at the Library of Congress.

While neither Hayden nor Permutter have publicly discussed their exits, multiple people I've spoken with today tell me that one of the central conflicts between both of them and the White House centered around allowing the DOGE people access to the Library's copyrighted material. The fear was that DOGE would scrape every bit of data it could from the library's holdings and two sources I spoke with told me they were told the plan was to eventually use the data to train generative AI.

The stated reason for that data scraping is to make government data collection and aggregation more efficient. But the end result would be an AI system that had been trained in part on every piece of written material, photo, and moving picture in the Library's collection.

One copyright lawyer I spoke with earlier today (who asked not to be identified, because they work at a law firm already targeted by the Trump Administration) told me that once that happens, Hollywood's efforts to protect its copyrights from being used to train AI systems is effectively over. "Once it's part of one AI dataset, it will likely eventually make its way to all of them," I was told. "It's not letting the genie out of the bottle, it's taking the genie and allowing it to be inserted into every other bottle in the world."

If there is any good news for Hollywood, it's that there is still time to push back against these efforts.

On Monday, the president named Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, as the acting librarian. But staff members refused access to two department officials he chose for key roles at Congress’s main research arm. So far, neither Blanche, his new appointees, or any members of DOGE have managed to obtain access to the Library of Congress and its data. And like most of these battles, this one seems likely headed to court:

In a brief email to the staff on Monday, Mr. Newlen noted that the White House had named a new acting librarian and suggested that the matter was still unresolved.

“Currently, Congress is engaged with the White House, and we have not yet received direction from Congress about how to move forward. We will share additional information as we receive it,” he wrote, signing the note as the “acting librarian of Congress.”

The librarian of Congress is a presidentially appointed post, subject to confirmation by the Senate.

So we now have a rapidly closing window to protect the copyrighted material of every studio, writer, author, or anyone whose output might be part of the library's holdings. It's time for Hollywood's expensive teams of lawyers to weigh in on the side of protecting the current copyright system. If past events are any indication, we aren't long from the day when DOGE employees show up with U.S. Marshalls and force their way into the building and obtain access to the entire 178 million title collection.

AND IF THAT BIT OF AI-RELATED NEWS WASN'T TROUBLING ENOUGH
404 Media is reporting Republicans has inserted language into the large budget reconciliation bill which would prohibit states from regulating AI entirely for ten years:

“...no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems during the 10 year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act,” says the text of the bill introduced Sunday night by Congressman Brett Guthrie of Kentucky, Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The text of the bill will be considered by the House at the budget reconciliation markup on May 13.

That language of the bill, how it goes on to define AI and other “automated systems,” and what it considers “regulation,” is broad enough to cover relatively new generative AI tools and technology that has existed for much longer. In theory, that language will make it impossible to enforce many existing and proposed state laws that aim to protect people from and inform them about AI systems.

Much of Hollywood's entertainment press seems to have missed these stories. But even worse, they don't appear to be a high priority for media companies either.

TWEET OF THE DAY

NEWS FROM THE NBC UPFRONTS
NBCUniversal held its upfronts Monday, and here are some of the announcements from the presentation:

*NBC and Peacock have ordered Snoop Dogg’s New Years Eve special, live from Miami on New Year's Eve.

* The Greg Daniels and Michael Koman-produced comedy series The Paper will premiere on Peacock in September. It is being described as a "follow-up" series to NBC's The Office, whatever that means.

* In November 2026, NBC will mark its 100th anniversary, and will mark the occasion with a variety special entitled NBC 100. Well, that certainly is one choice.

* It was announced that BravoCon 2025 will take place at the Caesars Forum in Las Vegas from November 14th to 16th, after having taken a year off.

* NBA legend Michael Jordan will appear as a special correspondent on NBCUniversal’s coverage of the NBA when it begins this fall. At the very least, I suspect he could provide some perspective on gambling.

* Versant, the Comcast-owned company that includes all of the former NBCUniversal cable networks which aren't named Bravo announced its first programming slate as a semi-independent entity. There will be 16 new series across E!, USA Network, Syfy, and Oxygen True Crime. The shows include the USA drama Anna Pigeon; a USA WWE-oriented food series entitled Everything On The Menu with Braun Strowman; and E! will premiere a reboot of Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane, starring Kimora Lee Simmons, as well as Plastic Surgery Rewind, hosted by former RuPaul’s Drag Race star Michelle Visage. Oxygen True Crime has ordered The Death Investigator with Barbara Butcher, The Killer Among Us, The Death Row Informant, The Silent Serial Killer: Gretzler, Killer Grannies and The Boston Stranglers.

NEWS FROM THE FOX UPFRONTS
Fox held its upfronts Monday, and here are some of the announcements from the presentation:

* Patrick Dempsey is returning to broadcast TV as the lead in Memory of a Killer, Fox's straight-to-series thriller about a hitman who develops early onset Alzheimer's.

* Fox-owned streamer Tubi has picked up the second season of British comedy series Big Mood, which renewed by the UK's Channel 4 earlier this year. It also ordered Destination World Cup 2026, a docuseries will follow three players, on and off the pitch, as they prepare for the tournament.

* Tubi has also ordered three YA movies: Xochitl Gomez stars in Hive, "a real-time, socially conscious horror-thriller about a strict, anxious teenager who loses the child she’s babysitting and must brave a sinister force hiding in plain sight among the children in the playground."

Chase Hudson stars in How to Lose a Popularity Contest, based on the 2024 Love List script by Kaitlin Reilly and Dorian Keyes. It's a high school rom-com "about a bad boy and a type-A overachiever teaming up to win student body president — and maybe each other."

Asher Angel stars in Kissing Is the Easy Part, which is adapted the Wattpad webnovel by Christine Duann. The movie will "follow straight-A overachiever Sean (Angel) as he makes a deal to tutor wild child Flora in exchange for a college recommendation letter to his dream school. But when sparks fly, school is the least of their problems."

NEWS FROM THE AMAZON UPFRONTS
Amazon held its upfronts Monday, and here are some of the Prime Video announcements from the presentation. It's interesting to see the streamer order multiple seasons ahead of time, which should cut down on the long downtime between seasons:

* Prime Video has renewed Fallout for a third season ahead of the season two premiere this December.

* Despite only modest ratings and complaints from Mr. Beast that he lost money on season one of Beast Games, Prime Video has ordered two additional seasons of the competition series.

* Prime Video released the first image of Nicholas Cage in the MGM+ & Prime Video series Spider-Noir (seen above), which is based on the Marvel comic Spider-Man Noir. It tells the story of an aging and down-on-his-luck private investigator (Cage) in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life as the city’s one and only superhero. The series will be released in both black-and-white and in color when it premieres in 2026.

* Prime Video has ordered Delphi, a drama series executive produced by Creed movie franchise star Michael B. Jordan and Marco Ramirez, who will serve as showrunner. The series will be focused on young boxers at the Delphi gym highlighted in the Rocky and Creed movies.

* Prime Video has ordered two new sports documentaries from Skydance Sports and NFL Films. The Home Team: NY Jets is a six-part documentary series that follows six New York Jets players and their partners—including Quinnen & Maranda Williams and Alijah & Jessie Vera-Tucker—throughout the 2024-25 regular season. There is also an untitled Terrell Owens documentary that according to the streamer "traces the meteoric rise of one of the most talented, accomplished, and polarizing athletes of America’s most popular sport and examines his role as the preeminent “prima donna” wide receiver of his era, while catching up with Owens in present-day to see how he is evolving and discovering a new personal path forward."

* Prime Video has officially ordered Barbershop, a TV series starring Jermaine Fowler (Ricky Stanicky) based on the MGM movies. The series had been reportedly ordered last fall, but today was the first time the streamer had confirmed the project.

* Last year, Prime Video announced it had ordered a reboot of American Gladiators. The streamer announced today that the series would be hosted by WWE and Real World alum Mike “The Miz” Mizanin. The show will also include what is described as an "all-star cast of celebrity Gladiators," including "professional bodybuilders, former D1 athletes, pro Cross-Fit champions and pro fitness trainers from around the globe."

* Prime Video has renewed the Academy Of Country Music Awards for three years, taking it through 2028.

ODDS AND SODS
* Jude Law and Andrew Garfield will executive produce and play Las Vegas showman-magicians Siegfried and Roy, in the newly Apple TV+ limited series Wild Things.

* Beyond the Gates has been renewed for a second season by CBS.

* The ABC News Studio documentary Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything will premiere on Hulu on June 23rd.

* Apple TV+ has greenlit Studio Ramsay Global’s Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars, an eight-part series in which food expert Jesse Burgess spotlights the chefs pursuing and trying to keep their Michelin stars.

WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND TOMORROW

MONDAY, MAY 12TH:
Greg Gutfeld's What Did I Miss? (Fox Nation)
Tastefully Yours Series Premiere (Netflix)

TUESDAY, MAY 13TH:
Bad Thoughts Series Premiere (Netflix)
Cutthroat Kitchen Knives Out Series Premiere (Food)
Joan Rivers: A Dead Funny All-Star Tribute (NBC)
Lee Soo Man: The King Of K-Pop (Prime Video)
The Rookie Season Finale (ABC)
Untold: The Liver King (Netflix)
Welcome: Now Get Lost Series (Netflix)
Will Trent Season Finale (ABC)

SEE YOU ON TUESDAY!