Kenya Copyright Tribunal rules AI-generated works cannot be copyrighted – What it means

Kenya’s Copyright Tribunal has ruled that works generated by artificial intelligence cannot attract copyright protection or be registered as original creations, delivering a landmark clarification on AI authorship under the country’s copyright law.

The ruling comes from a dispute involving Cynthia Beldina Akoth, author of Bible Scripture Stories, who had used AI tools to help produce content under contract for the Aryeh Movement. When the working relationship broke down, Beldina discovered that Aryeh had registered the literary works with the Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) under Aryeh’s own name rather than hers.

Beldina filed a complaint with KECOBO seeking revocation of Aryeh’s certificate of registration, arguing she had never consented to the registration and had not transferred ownership of the works. KECOBO agreed and stripped Aryeh of its certificate. Aryeh then escalated the matter to the Copyright Tribunal.

Although the case centred on a registration dispute, the Tribunal used it to address a question Kenya’s Copyright Act has never explicitly settled: whether AI can be considered an author.

The Tribunal held that authorship under Kenyan law remains exclusively human. It noted that the Copyright Act defines an author as the person who first creates a literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic work. While AI can produce content, and creators are free to use it, the Tribunal found that AI lacks the legal personality required to qualify as an author and that originality, creativity, and intellectual effort, the foundations of copyright, cannot be attributed to a machine.

“There has to be an element of sufficient human intervention to determine the extent of copyrightability of works generated by AI,” the tribunal stated, adding that AI-assisted work qualifies for protection only where the creator can demonstrate substantial human contribution shaping its original character, something neither party in this case managed to prove.

What the Tribunal ruling on AI-generated works’ copyright means for creators in Kenya

The ruling does not bar Kenyans from using AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini and AI image generators in their creative work. But it draws a firm line. AI can be a collaborator, not a co-owner, and cannot convert someone’s creative labour into a registrable asset on its own. Creators hoping to commercialise AI-assisted content will need to keep clear records of their own input and be able to show how their originality shaped the final output.

The decision offers reassurance that AI use does not automatically disqualify a work from copyright protection but also cautions that protection extends only as far as genuine human creativity can be demonstrated, a standard likely to shape how Kenya’s publishers, illustrators, and musicians document AI-assisted projects going forward.

Beyond the authorship question, the Tribunal found that KECOBO had exceeded its mandate by revoking Aryeh’s certificate to resolve the ownership dispute. It ruled that KECOBO’s role is limited to maintaining the copyright register and that ownership disputes fall to judicial bodies, not the regulator.

Aryeh had argued that commissioned works automatically transfer copyright to the party that commissioned them, but the Tribunal found the evidence lacking. 

“For the Appellant [Aryeh] to prove that the said works were commissioned, an agreement is imperative,” it observed. Contractual documents outlined responsibilities among the parties but did not clearly identify the author; one agreement named Aryeh as the copyright holder while also crediting Beldina and a colleague, Pauline Mwangi, for their contributions and acknowledged Beldina’s moral rights as scriptwriter and illustrator using AI-generated imagery without settling authorship outright.

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The Tribunal declined to resolve the authorship question itself, saying Beldina had not presented sufficient evidence proving her own authorship. It instead directed the parties to settle the matter of authorship and any related commercial arrangements between themselves.

The decision leaves Kenya’s Copyright Act without explicit AI provisions but establishes a working precedent. Human contribution, clearly evidenced, is the threshold for protection, a standard likely to shape how creators, publishers and companies structure AI-assisted work going forward.