Kenya Copyright Court ruled that AI-generated works are not protected by copyright-what does this me

Kenya Copyright Tribunal ruled that AI-generated content is not protected by copyright

Kenya Copyright Tribunal recently issued a landmark ruling, clearly determining that works generated by artificial intelligence cannot be copyright protected and cannot be registered as original works. The ruling provides a clear explanation of the authorship of artificial intelligence under the country\'s copyright law.

The ruling stems from a dispute involving Cynthia Berdina Akot. Berdina, the author of \"The Bible Story\", has used artificial intelligence tools to help create content under a contract with the Ariye Movement. When the partnership broke down, Berdina discovered that the Ariye Movement had registered the literary works with the Kenya Copyright Commission in its own name, rather than her name.

Berdina filed a complaint with the Copyright Commission, requesting that Ariye\'s registration certificate be revoked, on the grounds that she had never agreed to the registration and had not transferred the ownership of the work. The Copyright Commission agreed to her request and cancelled Ariye\'s registration certificate. Ariye later appealed the matter to the copyright court.

Core question: Can artificial intelligence be regarded as an author?

Although the case itself revolved around a registration dispute, the court took the opportunity to respond to an issue that Kenya\'s Copyright Law has never explicitly resolved: whether artificial intelligence can be regarded as an author. The court held that under Kenyan law, authorship status is limited to human beings. The court noted that the Copyright Act defines an author as the person who first created a literary, musical, dramatic or artistic work. Although artificial intelligence can generate content and creators can use it freely, the court found that artificial intelligence lacks the legal personality needed to become an author, and that the basis of copyright-originality, creativity and intellectual labor-cannot be attributed to machines.

The court stated: \"There must be sufficient elements of human intervention to determine the copyrights of AI-generated works.\" He added that AI-assisted works are eligible for protection only if the creator can prove that they have made substantial human contributions to the original characteristics of the work, which neither party in the case has proved.

Implications for Kenyan creators

The ruling does not prohibit Kenyans from using tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini and AI image generators in their creations. But it draws a clear line: AI can be a collaborator, but it cannot become a co-owner, nor can it turn someone\'s creative work into a registrable asset on its own. Creators who want to commercialize AI-assisted content need to clearly record their investment and be able to demonstrate how their originality shapes the final result.

This decision brings some comfort: the use of artificial intelligence will not automatically disqualify a work from copyright protection; but it also warns that the scope of protection only extends to the part that can prove true human creativity. This standard is likely to affect how Kenyan publishers, illustrators and musicians document AI-assisted projects in the future.

Decision on the Authority of the Copyright Committee

In addition to the issue of authorship identity, the court also found that the Copyright Committee exceeded its authority in resolving ownership disputes by revoking Ariye\'s registration certificate. The court ruled that the Copyright Commission\'s role is limited to maintaining copyright registers and that ownership disputes should be handled by judicial bodies rather than regulatory bodies.

Ariye once argued that the copyright of the commissioned work would automatically be transferred to the entrusting party, but the court found that the evidence was insufficient. The court pointed out: \"The appellant (Ariye) must have an agreement to prove that the relevant work was commissioned.\" The contract documents clarified the responsibilities between the parties, but did not clearly identify the author; one agreement listed Ariye as a copyright holder, recognized the contributions of Berdina and her colleague Pauline Mwangi, and recognized Berdina\'s moral rights as a screenwriter and illustrator to use AI to generate images, but did not clearly resolve the issue of author identity.

The court refused to resolve the authorship\'s identity issue on its own, saying Berdina failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove she was the author. The court instead instructed both parties to resolve the issue of author identity and related business arrangements on their own.

This ruling allows Kenya\'s Copyright Law to not explicitly include artificial intelligence provisions, but to establish a feasible precedent: clear evidence of human contribution is the threshold for protection. This standard is likely to influence how creators, publishers and companies build AI-assisted work models in the future.