Legal Considerations when working with AI

When working with AI, you need to pay special attention to the following legal issues:

  • Issues concerning the processing of personal data (GDPR)
  • Issues concerning the use of copyrighted works (Intellectual property)
  • Issues concerning infringement of other IP rights

GDPR
The main concerns regarding GDPR are the use of personal data when prompting / training the AI tool.
The following material is personal data:

  • Name
  • Student ID
  • Age
  • Academic papers
  • Any personal data about the students the AI tool may receive when the students are interacting with the AI tool and when the AI tool is personalized to the students (by individual logins)

The use of personal data
When processing personal data, CBS must have a legal basis for processing. Legal basis can either be based on consent (GDPR Article 6, litra a) or as part of CBS’ core functions as a public university (GDPR Article 6, litra e). For the AI Pilots, the applicable legal basis is GDPR Article 6, litra e, since the processing of personal data serves educational and teaching purposes, which fall within CBS’s core functions as a university. In case some personal data does not fall within CBS’ core functions, CBS must obtain consent from the relevant individuals in order to lawfully process the personal data.

Automated decision making, including profiling
An automated decision/recommendation, including profiling, producing a legal effect or a similarly significant effect on an individual, i.e. a student, may not comply with Article 22 of the GDPR. “Profiling” means applying a profile to someone in order to tailor the automated decision/recommendation, i.e. categorizing the students after their academic skills.

AI tools can be used by the students as a sparring partner for their individual learning process and can be used by professors to tailor their teaching to the students’ needs.
AI tools that provide the students with guidance regarding the students’ knowledge and progress in a course can have great benefits for the students’ individual learning. However, it is important to note that the recommendations made upon profiling the students’ learning progress must only be available for the individual student and not their professors. Furthermore, it is important that CBS ensures that the AI tools used have an adequate level of security when making automated recommendations regarding the students’ knowledge and skills in learning to prevent the AI tool providing the students with misleading guidance.

AI tools can also provide professors with feedback on the learning process of the students. It is important to note that the professors are only given access to aggregated class-level data and not data on an individual student basis. If the professors receive feedback on an individual student basis, it may create preconceived notions about the individual student academic performance which may have a significant impact on the individual student grading. In order to prevent discrimination, the professors are only allowed access to aggregated class-level data.

Copyright
Copyright is a big issue generally when using AI tools. Copyrighted works, such as textbooks, teaching materials, notes, teaching cases, PowerPoint presentations etc., is governed by the Danish Copyright Act and in order for these works to be used in AI tools, the right holders to the works must give their explicit permission.

A right holder can for example be one or more authors and/or publishers, other organizations, institutions (universities) if the right holders have transferred their rights.
If the professor has made copyrighted works themselves without including other copyrighted works in their works, the professor can upload their own copyrighted works to the AI tool, presumed that the professor is the only right holder and that the rights to the works have not been transferred to third parties such as publishers.

Obtaining permission to use copyrighted works
There are no legal requirements when obtaining permission to use copyrighted works. Permission can be granted by the right holders via e-mail or orally. However, it is recommended that permission is obtained in written form in order to document that permission has been granted. Once all relevant right holders have been identified, a copyright permission letter can be as follows:

“Dear [insert right holders’ name],
I am writing to you in my capacity as [insert title] at Copenhagen Business School (“CBS”). We are teaching a course [insert name of course] which includes the use of [insert name of AI tool and a short description of the tool]. In this regard, we are interested in using your [name of copyrighted work] as part of our teaching course. The work is intended to be uploaded to the AI tool and will be used [insert purpose of using the copyrighted work] and will be used for the semester of [insert duration of the semester]. The upload of your work to the AI tool consists of reproduction and making your work available to the public. CBS will of course compensate financially for the use.
Kind regards,
[insert your name]”

Rights clearance issues
Obtaining permission to use copyrighted works may be simple if the right holder(s) is employed at CBS. If there are multiple right holders outside of CBS and/or the right holders have entered into publishing agreements with publishers or in other ways have transferred their rights to third parties, it may be difficult obtaining all the right permissions.

Collective licensing agreements
A way to get around the issues with obtaining relevant permissions will be to enter into a collective licensing agreement with a collective licensing organization such as Tekst & Node. A collective licensing organization represents all relevant right holders and can grant permission on behalf of all relevant right holders. As of June 2025, use of copyrighted works in AI tools is not permitted unless you have obtained permission from all relevant right holders yourself. Tekst & Node is currently working on how to incorporate AI usage into their collective licensing agreements and are expecting to offer a licensing solution during 2025.

Obtaining permission from students
Students’ academic papers are also protected by copyright. Therefore, uploading a student’s academic paper to an AI tool also requires permission. The students must provide CBS with the following permission:

“To whom it may concern
I, [insert student’s name], hereby give my permission for the upload of my academic papers in the course, [insert name of course] for the academic semester of [insert duration of the semester] to [insert name of AI tool]. I give permission for my academic papers to be reproduced and made available to the public via the AI tool.

Other IP rights
Please be aware that AI tools must not create outputs containing information that could potentially infringe third parties’ IP rights such as copyright, patents, trademarks etc.

Contact EDQ
Our guidelines cover a generic overview of questions regarding AI, GDPR and IP. If you have specific questions regarding the use of AI tools, please contact EDQ at edq@cbs.dk.