Acoustic Emission(AE) technique is widely used in monitoring material machining process. Scratch is an important removal mechanism during material removal, especially in precision machining. It’s valuable to research AE characteristic of scratch. Copper is semiconductor interconnect material. AE characteristic of scratch on copper surface was researched, and the effect of load and velocity on AE and copper removal mechanism during scratch were analyzed, giving theoretical support for monitoring nano- or micro-removal process on copper surface with AE. The results show: Copper deforms mainly plastically during scratch with a periodic morphology, generating continuous AE signal. Signal power increases as scratch velocity increases, while load has less effect on AE signal. Signal power has an exponential relation with the increase rate of deformed volume. The results show that AE can characterize the scratch process to some extent.