As academic institutions embrace Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for efficiency, a critical equity gap has emerged: the commercial exploitation of Open Access (OA) scholarship. While courts increasingly view AI training as transformative fair use, this legal framing often benefits commercial entities more than the academic creators providing the material.
This poster explores the dual-sided copyright risks facing today's researchers. First, the permissive nature of OA licenses allows AI companies to ingest scholarly content without compensation. Second, authors may unknowingly surrender their intellectual property by feeding unpublished manuscripts into tools that prioritize corporate profit over the mission of open knowledge.
To address these challenges, the poster introduces a "Copyright Self-Defense" checklist. This framework provides a path for librarians to advocate for researcher rights without impeding institutional AI adoption. The goal is to move beyond basic AI literacy toward a practical, librarian-led guidance model. By highlighting technical and rights-based recommendations, this session empowers libraries to protect their community’s intellectual output and remain steadfast in the mission of open scholarship.
