Ask the Instructors: Copyright Essentials from A to AI
Copyright is an issue that may seem best left to the experts. However, decisions about copyright are routinely encountered in the everyday practices of libraries and scholarly communications, leaving those working with interlibrary loans, licensing, image use, and increasingly, AI tools for research, to make copyright-related decisions.
Copyright Essentials: From A to AI is specifically designed for those who frequently encounter copyright questions in their work. Training series facilitators Willa Liburd Tavernier and Karen Stoll Farrell have created a practical course geared toward developing both a working understanding of copyright and a framework for thinking through questions that don’t always have simple answers.
In anticipation of the series, we asked Willa and Karen about some of the most common questions and misconceptions around copyright, why understanding underlying principals matter, and how AI is changing some of the questions around creation, use, reuse, and ownership.
Who did you design this course for?
Many people working in libraries are copyright practitioners. They often do not see themselves as experts on copyright issues, but they work with it regularly. This could be, for example, people working with licensing or digitizing materials or ILL or instruction or collections- basically, most library paths touch on copyright in some way. We hope that this course will give folks some of the framework of what is and what isn’t copyright or copyrightable, and how to think about copyright not as a question with a yes or no answer, but as a process in which risks and benefits are weighed. By focusing on the principles of copyright and its stated purpose, we hope to equip participants with methods to balance copyright risks in a way that is beneficial to all.
What are some common misconceptions about copyright?
One misconception that happens regularly in academia in particular is about fair use. It is often discussed as though fair use comes into play specifically because of educational intent. For example, I’ve heard instructors say that they can make a copyrighted work available to their students because it’s fair use. And in libraries, I’ve heard exhibits described as fair use because they have an educational purpose. But fair use is actually more complex and involves weighing four factors. There are some areas where there is reasonable agreement on what is fair use and others where the answer is still very murky.
Relatedly, some copyright issues related specifically to education and libraries have seen very little testing in the courts, which means that all of us are doing our best to use the evidence at hand and extrapolate answers. Often I find that people have questions about copyright where they want there to be a ‘right’ or ‘correct’ answer, but many of these questions have not actually been given direct answers in the courts.
How is asking questions like “Who is being protected?” and “Who benefits?" a useful approach to understanding copyright today?
Copyright rules don’t exist in a vacuum. They are made with certain societal goals in mind such as rewarding and protecting creators and innovators, and enabling them to make a living from their work, while balancing the interests of societal advancement by allowing others to build on prior innovation, existing knowledge and creativity. As society changes and technology advances, it’s useful to consider whether the rules still serve these purposes adequately from the perspectives that these questions try to illuminate. We think that if learners look at the underlying principles and critically evaluate the system within which copyright rules exist while also learning the rules, they will be equipped with a broader contextual approach for their own copyright practices and policies.
How has AI changed the questions around copyright?
In recent years significant developments in generative AI technology have raised questions about the re-use of creative works by machines and the copyrightability of work created by or with generative AI, prompted reflection around the impact and possible unintended consequences of open licensing, and created new commercial incentives to license the huge corpora of academic work to which publishers hold copyright. What these developments have done is exposed power relations in a way that many in academia and the general public did not pay attention to in any systematic way prior to these technological developments, and sharpened questions around modes of, access to, and the extraction of value from knowledge production.
Tensions are heightened because these power relations are increasingly apparent across many broader social issues—bias, ethics, labor (creative and otherwise), the environment, and social inequality. So far as copyright is concerned, the existing framework of US copyright law has proven reasonably resilient to answer many of the questions worked through the courts. Some stakeholders may find particular outcomes unsatisfactory, but that is true of litigation in any field, and dissatisfaction with an outcome does not necessarily mean that the legal framework itself is inadequate.
Register now and continue the conversation!
If there's a common theme to these answers, it's that copyright literacy is less about hard-and-fast rules than developing a framework for making thoughtful decisions. The NISO training series is an ideal opportunity for people working at the intersection of these challenges to understand what the law says, but more importantly to develop the context and confidence to apply it thoughtfully.
Register now for Copyright Essentials from A to AI to continue the conversation with Willa and Karen and explore copyright principles, practical decision-making, and emerging issues.This eight-week program takes place from Thursday, October 1 to November 19, 2026; all sessions will be recorded and available to registrants.