The Copyright Tribunal has dealt a reality check to Kenyan creators seeking to claim ownership and profit from content generated by artificial intelligence. While AI can assist in the creative process, the Tribunal ruled that works produced by machines cannot attract copyright protection, nor be registered as original creations.

 

This was the awakening experienced by Cynthia Beldina Akoth, the author of Bible Scripture Stories, who had used AI to generate content for a company that had contracted her. She soon realised she could not protect the works from commercial exploitation by third parties as her own original creations.

Beldina triggered the case when she filed a complaint with the Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO), seeking revocation of the certificate of registration issued to Aryeh Movement. Contracted by Aryeh to produce a series of Bible Scripture Stories, she had used AI tools to help generate the content. When the working relationship soured, she discovered that Aryeh had registered the literary works with KECOBO under its own name, not hers.

Believing the registration had been mishandled, Beldina wrote to KECOBO seeking its revocation.

She argued that she had never consented to Aryeh registering the work and that the company had no right to present her writing as its own. She further maintained that she had not transferred ownership of the works to Aryeh.

KECOBO agreed, reversing its earlier decision and stripping Aryeh of its certificate. Aryeh, unwilling to let the matter rest, escalated the dispute to the Copyright Tribunal.

Although the dispute centred on the registration of the literary works, the Tribunal found itself grappling with a much broader question, one that Kenya’s Copyright Act has never expressly addressed: the issue of AI authorship.

In its judgment, the Tribunal observed that under Kenyan law, authorship remains exclusively human, noting that the Copyright Act defines an author as the person who first creates a literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic work.

The judicial body acknowledged that although AI is capable of producing content, and creators are free to use it in their work, it lacks the legal personality required to qualify as an author. Authorship under Kenya’s copyright laws therefore remains the preserve of human beings. Originality, creativity, and intellectual effort, the very foundations of copyright protection, cannot be attributed to a machine. AI cannot own copyright, nor can it be credited as an author.

The Tribunal further noted that while Kenya’s Copyright Act is silent on AI‑generated works, the law already requires literary works to possess sufficient originality arising from human effort before they can qualify for protection.“There has to be an element of sufficient human intervention to determine the extent of copyrightability of works generated by AI,” the Tribunal stated.

It added that any AI‑assisted work would only qualify where the author can clearly demonstrate a substantial human contribution that gives the work its original character, something neither Aryeh Movement nor Beldina managed to prove.

The ruling means creators remain free to use AI platforms such as ChatGPT or image generators in their process, but human creativity must remain the driving force. For Kenya’s growing community of writers, musicians, and illustrators, AI may be a collaborator, but it cannot be a co‑owner, nor can it convert someone else’s creative labour into a registrable asset.

Anyone hoping to monetise AI‑assisted content will need to keep meticulous records of their own input and demonstrate how their originality shaped the final work. The decision offers both reassurance and caution—reassurance that AI use does not automatically disqualify a work from protection, but caution that copyright only extends as far as genuine human creativity can be proven.

Beyond the AI issue, the Tribunal also addressed the ownership dispute. It ruled that KECOBO had exceeded its mandate when it attempted to determine ownership by revoking Aryeh’s certificate following Beldina’s complaint. KECOBO’s role, it said, is limited to maintaining the copyright register. It added that judicial bodies, not the regulator, are tasked with resolving disputes over ownership.

Aryeh argued that commissioned works automatically transfer copyright to the commissioning party. However, the Tribunal found significant gaps in the evidence. “For the Appellant (Aryeh) to prove that the said works were commissioned, an agreement is imperative,” it observed.

While documents outlined responsibilities among those involved, they failed to identify the author. One agreement named Aryeh as copyright holder while crediting Beldina and colleague Pauline Mwangi for contributions. It acknowledged Beldina’s moral rights as a scriptwriter and illustrator using AI‑generated imagery but stopped short of settling authorship.

The Tribunal declined to fill that gap, noting that Beldina had not presented evidence proving her own authorship. Instead, it urged all parties to resolve the question of authorship and any resulting commercial arrangements themselves.

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