New Webinar: "Serious Copyright Issues with AI"

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

COST:

• $99/person - includes live attendance and any-time access to the recording and the presentation slides and receiving a participation certificate. To arrange group discounts (see below), to submit a purchase order, or for any registration difficulties or questions, email admin@library20.com.

TO REGISTER: 

Click HERE to register and pay. You can pay by credit card. You will receive an email within a day with information on how to attend the webinar live and how you can access the permanent webinar recording. If you are paying for someone else to attend, you'll be prompted to send an email to admin@library20.com with the name and email address of the actual attendee.

If you need to be invoiced or pay by check, if you have any trouble registering for a webinar, or if you have any questions, please email admin@library20.com.

NOTE: Please check your spam folder if you don't receive your confirmation email within a day.

SPECIAL GROUP RATES (email admin@library20.com to arrange):

• Multiple individual log-ins and access from the same organization paid together: $75 each for 3+ registrations, $65 each for 5+ registrations. Unlimited and non-expiring access for those log-ins.
• The ability to show the webinar (live or recorded) to a group located in the same physical location or in the same virtual meeting from one log-in: $299.
• Large-scale institutional access for viewing with individual login capability: $499 (hosted either at Learning Revolution or in Niche Academy). Unlimited and non-expiring access for those log-ins.

REED C. HEPLER

Reed Hepler is a digital initiatives librarian, instructional designer, copyright agent, artificial intelligence practitioner and consultant, and PhD student at Idaho State University. He earned a Master's Degree in Instructional Design and Educational Technology from Idaho State University in 2025. In 2022, he obtained a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science, with emphases in Archives Management and Digital Curation from Indiana University. He has worked at nonprofits, corporations, and educational institutions encouraging information literacy and effective education. Combining all of these degrees and experiences, Reed strives to promote ethical librarianship and educational initiatives.

Currently, Reed works as a Digital Initiatives Librarian at a college in Idaho and also has his own consulting firm, heplerconsulting.com. His views and projects can be seen on his LinkedIn page or his blog, CollaborAItion, on Substack. Contact him at reed.hepler@gmail.com for more information.

 

OTHER UPCOMING EVENTS:

November 6, 2026

November 10, 2026

November 12, 2026

November 13, 2026

November 20, 2026

December 9, 2026

December 17, 2026

New Webinar - "An Introduction to AI Agents: Safe and Effective Use "

An Introduction to AI Agents: Safe and Effective Use
A Library 2.0 AI Webinar with Dr. Morissa Schwartz

OVERVIEW: 

What are AI agents, how do they differ from a chatbot, and where might they be useful in a school or library? What should they be allowed to do, and how can you check the result?

An AI agent can carry a task through several steps: gather information, organize it, prepare a draft, and work with connected tools. For librarians and educators, that raises an immediate question: how do you give it useful work while keeping control of the information and actions involved?

In this practical introduction, Dr. Morissa Schwartz will explain the basic concepts and the decisions a person needs to make when delegating a task to an AI agent. She then provides a specific and bounded example: preparing draft social-media content from approved library information.

The walkthrough will show how to define the task, limit what the agent is allowed to access and do, protect sensitive information, and check accuracy and tone. It will also show where human approval belongs before anything is sent or published, and how to respond when an agent stops or produces an unexpected result.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• Explain the roles and differences between a chatbot, an automated workflow, and an agent carrying out a multi-step task.
• Choose a bounded task and define access, privacy, and approval limits that fit school or library policies.
• Check the completed work against the brief and correct errors before using it.

DATE: Friday, November 20th, 2026, 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm US Eastern Time

COST:

• $99/person - includes live attendance, anytime access to the recording and presentation slides, and a participation certificate. To arrange group discounts (see below), to submit a purchase order, or for any registration difficulties or questions, email admin@library20.com.

TO REGISTER: 

Click HERE to register and pay. You can pay by credit card. You will receive an email within a day with information on how to attend the webinar live and how you can access the permanent webinar recording. If you are paying for someone else to attend, you'll be prompted to send an email to admin@library20.com with the name and email address of the actual attendee.

If you need to be invoiced or pay by check, if you have any trouble registering for a webinar, or if you have any questions, please email admin@library20.com.

NOTE: Please check your spam folder if you don't receive your confirmation email within a day.

SPECIAL GROUP RATES (email admin@library20.com to arrange):

• Multiple individual log-ins and access from the same organization paid together: $75 each for 3+ registrations, $65 each for 5+ registrations. Unlimited and non-expiring access for those log-ins.
• The ability to show the webinar (live or recorded) to a group located in the same physical location or in the same virtual meeting from one log-in: $299.
• Large-scale institutional access for viewing with individual login capability: $499 (hosted either at Learning Revolution or in Niche Academy). Unlimited and non-expiring access for those log-ins.

 

DR. MORISSA SCHWARTZ

Dr. Morissa Schwartz is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree in Media, a writer, and the founder of Dr. Rissy’s Writing & Marketing and GenZ Publishing. She holds a doctorate in literature and brings practical experience in AI training and evaluation to her work as an educator and business owner.

Her programs connect AI with the work people actually need to finish: communicating clearly, checking information, protecting their voice, and making sound decisions about what to delegate. She teaches through concrete examples drawn from writing, publishing, marketing, and entrepreneurship, with an emphasis on human judgment throughout the process.

Morissa’s experience includes entrepreneurship instruction and educational programs for library and professional audiences. Her recent Fortune commentary examines the workload created by AI assistants, a subject she also explores through her own daily use of agents. Growing up in her family’s New Jersey carpet shop gave her an early appreciation for the time, care, and customer relationships that sustain a small business.

 OTHER UPCOMING EVENTS:

November 4, 2026

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November 13, 2026

December 9, 2026

December 17, 2026