Fair use was designed as a shield for individuals against institutional power. The legal argument now being deployed to justify AI training on copyrighted work runs that doctrine in reverse — institutional actors using individual-rights language to extract value from individual creators at scale. The Bluesky question about libraries [1] is not a metaphor: it names the precise institutional relationship under strain. Libraries advocate for fair use. AI companies cite fair use. Creators who cheered the first argument are now watching the second and finding the logic indistinguishable. That is…