AI SESSIONS

Serious Issues with Copyright and AI
A Library 2.0 / Learning Revolution Webinar with Reed Hepler

OVERVIEW: 

In this webinar, Reed examines two prevalent pitfalls from a copyright librarian’s perspective. The session is designed to help librarians advise patrons and make sounder decisions in their own work, including instruction, content creation, and collection development. While the legal landscape continues to evolve, the discussion focuses on practical risks librarians and users face today.

First, library users frequently want to use materials they find—whether a webpage, a book chapter, a logo, or other resources—to support their own thinking and purposes. Librarians and their patrons must navigate a complex landscape when they ask, “We’ve found the information we need. What are we allowed to do with it? Is it OK to upload copyrighted material into a chatbot?”

At the same time, many people are sharing ideas and work created with or using AI. This raises related questions: Is that work protected by copyright? How do we treat material that AI helps generate—whether it is our own or someone else’s?

For both challenges, AI can appear to offer easy and helpful solutions. Yet two common practices carry serious risks: uploading copyrighted materials into AI prompts, and collaborating with AI while attempting to claim full rights to the resulting work. Both approaches rest on inaccurate assumptions and can lead users—regardless of background or intent—into copyright infringement and overreliance on AI tools.

We’ll also touch on the larger landscape, including ongoing large-scale training-data lawsuits and the important distinction between training AI models on copyrighted material and the inference process of prompting a finished model with specific content. Understanding that difference helps clarify which uses raise the most immediate copyright concerns.

Attendees will learn about common inappropriate practices, flawed assumptions, and risky arguments that can trap users in copyright violations. The session provides practical guidance to help librarians and their patrons use AI more carefully and responsibly when working with protected materials.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• Identify the two most common copyright pitfalls when using AI tools: uploading copyrighted materials into prompts and claiming full rights in AI-assisted works.
• Evaluate whether and under what conditions copyrighted materials may be uploaded or otherwise used as inputs for AI tools in educational and library settings.
• Explain current U.S. Copyright Office guidance and relevant court decisions regarding the copyrightability of AI-generated and AI-assisted works.
• Distinguish between AI model training and inference, and describe how each raises different copyright issues.
• Apply practical strategies for advising patrons and making institutional decisions about AI use of copyrighted materials and AI-assisted content creation.
• Discuss the broader challenges AI presents to copyright librarianship, including the implications of large-scale training-data litigation.

All registrants will have access to the recording and presentation slides.

DATE: Tuesday, December 1st, 2026, 2:00 - 3:00 pm US Eastern Time