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Africa: Copyright & Public Interest

Promoting Education and Research: Joint Submission on Kenya’s 2026 Copyright Bill

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On March 31, 2026, the Geneva Centre on Knowledge Governance partnered with Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL) to submit joint comments to the Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) regarding the proposed Copyright and Related Rights Bill, 2026. Drawing on our long history of engagement with Kenya’s copyright laws, our submission provides a careful analysis of the new draft framework. While the 2026 Bill introduces significant improvements for research, education, and cultural heritage institutions compared to the 2025 version, it also contains concerning amendments that will negatively impact these critical sectors. For the full document, see the PDF below. Our submission begins by applauding the positive aspects of the 2026 Bill. Most notably, the new provisions concerning fair dealing and text and data analysis are far simpler and more direct than those in the previous draft. By consolidating acceptable purposes and clearly laying out the factors for determining fair dealing, the bill makes the law easier for courts and users to apply. Furthermore, the straightforward language surrounding text and data analysis will undoubtedly hasten the adoption of this critical technology for scientific and research uses in Kenya. However, we also urgently recommend reversing several detrimental changes introduced in the 2026 draft. We urge KECOBO to maintain an “open” fair dealing provision to future-proof the law, rather than restricting it to a closed list of specific purposes. Additionally, we strongly oppose the inclusion of the ambiguous “three-step test” for individual users, the removal of vital contract override protections that safeguard statutory exceptions from restrictive digital licenses, and the deletion of the practical exception for temporary digital copies. Finally, we call for the complete removal of the newly introduced “commercial availability test” for accessible format copies, which creates unacceptable legal and administrative burdens for libraries serving persons with print disabilities. The full PDF of our comments as submitted can be viewed, downloaded and printed below.

Africa: Copyright & Public Interest

Advancing Access to Knowledge: Our Joint Submission on Zambia’s 2025 Copyright Bill

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On March 30, 2026, the Geneva Centre on Knowledge Governance partnered with the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL) to submit joint comments on Zambia’s Copyright and Related Rights Bill, 2025. Addressed to the Patents and Companies Registration Agency (PACRA), our submission champions fair and affordable access to knowledge for education, research, and socio-economic development. We recognize that the Bill contains several positive provisions from a public interest perspective, and our joint comments aim to ensure the new law properly supports libraries, researchers, and creators in Zambia. For the full document, see the PDF below. A significant portion of our submission responds to observations made by the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations (IFRRO) and the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC). We firmly pushed back against their restrictive policy preferences, which they incorrectly claimed were mandated by international treaties. Specifically, we defended PACRA’s policy decisions to permit private copying without mandatory remuneration, supported educational copying exceptions, and strongly opposed the elimination of the Bill’s highly beneficial proposed exception for non-commercial text and data mining (TDM). We also argued against introducing a public lending right, which would operate as a detrimental tax on reading and education in a developing country context. Finally, our submission offers several constructive recommendations to future-proof Zambia’s copyright framework and enhance access to knowledge. We urge PACRA to adopt an open, flexible “fair dealing” provision and to expand the TDM exception to further support local research and innovation in fields like agriculture and healthcare. Furthermore, we recommend clarifying the rules around library lending and the exhaustion of rights, protecting statutory copyright exceptions from being overridden by restrictive digital licensing contracts, and adding the necessary provisions to allow the cross-border exchange of accessible format copies under the Marrakesh Treaty for persons with print disabilities. To protect local creators from unequal bargaining power, we also suggest giving authors the unwaivable right to terminate copyright assignments after a set number of years. The full PDF of our comments as submitted can be viewed, downloaded and printed below.

WIPO-SCCR

Is the African Group Proposal on L&Es Consistent with EU Law?

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At the 47th session of WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), the African Group tabled a proposal for an instrument on limitations and exceptions aimed at supporting education, research, cultural heritage, and access for persons with disabilities. For years, discussions at SCCR on limitations and exceptions have been marked by resistance from developed countries to advancing text-based work. This position has started to shift in recent SCCR sessions, with the EU signaling a willingness to engage in discussions on non-binding instruments. However, it remains unclear whether this shift implies a willingness to engage with the African Group proposal. Against this background, we have taken a closer look at how the African Group proposal compares with EU copyright law. Looking at the two frameworks side by side, the gap between them appears smaller than it is often presented. Shifting the focus to the common ground could therefore help make the ongoing discussions at SCCR more constructive. Below is a table with a presentation of the African Group Proposal side-by-side with EU law, organised by topic. A third column summarises the similarities and differences. Expand a topic to see the detailed text. Below the table is further analysis of the areas of convergence and divergence, and a PDF version to download and print. Uses for purposes of education and research Both the African Group proposal and EU copyright law allow Member States to provide for an open-ended exception covering uses for illustration for teaching or scientific research. In this respect, the two approaches are very similar, both recognising that a degree of flexibility is needed to accommodate a wide range of educational and research activities. Beyond this general provision, all key educational and research activities listed in the African Group proposal also find parallels in EU law. EU legislation includes optional exceptions for private copies and quotations, and a range of mandatory exceptions that address key aspects of research and education. These include the text and data mining exceptions, the exception for testing and interoperability of computer programs, the exception for digital teaching activities, and the framework for orphan works. Taken together, these provisions cover a broad spectrum of uses that support research and education, from data analysis and computational research to classroom activities and access to materials. The differences emerge primarily in the conditions attached to these more specific exceptions. EU law often limits them to particular beneficiaries, ties them to non-commercial purposes, or subjects them to additional requirements. The African Group proposal, by contrast, relies on more general standards such as fair practice and purpose-based use. Uses by cultural heritage institutions The comparison in the area of cultural heritage also reveals a strong degree of alignment between the African Group proposal and EU law. Both frameworks recognise the need to enable cultural heritage institutions to preserve works in their collections. The provision in the African Group proposal closely mirrors the corresponding rule in EU law, which allows cultural heritage institutions to make copies of works and other subject matter, in any format, to the extent necessary for preservation. Both frameworks also address access to works held in institutional collections. The African Group proposal allows institutions to provide access to preserved works on their premises, while also permitting the provision of copies for research and study purposes outside their premises. EU law allows cultural heritage institutions to make works available to the public for research and private study through dedicated terminals on their premises. While copies made under the preservation exception cannot as such be used to provide access, access to preserved works may nevertheless be permitted where it independently complies with the conditions of the dedicated terminals exception. In relation to out-of-commerce works, both approaches acknowledge that access should be enabled under certain conditions. The African Group proposal allows uses where suitable licences are not easily available, while the EU framework relies on licensing by collective management organisations, complemented by an exception that applies where such organisations are not sufficiently representative. In practice, the EU system has so far seen limited uptake, with relatively few out-of-commerce works being made available through this mechanism. Other permitted uses The provisions are relatively similar when it comes to access for persons with disabilities. Like the African Group proposal, EU law already allows Member States to provide for an open-ended exception covering uses for the benefit of people with any disability. In both frameworks, the beneficiaries are defined in broad terms and the permitted uses are not exhaustively listed. The main differences lie in the conditions attached to those uses. The African Group proposal requires that the person need the accessible format in order to enjoy the work on an equitable basis with others, while EU law requires that the use be directly related to the disability, non-commercial in nature, and limited to what is required by the specific disability. Cross-border uses are another area where both frameworks build on similar concerns. EU law addresses cross-border situations in three specific contexts: digital teaching activities, the use of out-of-commerce works, and the exchange of accessible format copies under the Marrakesh framework. The African Group proposal takes a broader approach, providing that limitations and exceptions should permit cross-border uses as a general rule, including the circulation of copies made under those exceptions. The picture is different when it comes to remunerated uses. The African Group proposal expressly allows for uses beyond those specifically covered, provided that they are subject to adequate remuneration. EU law, by contrast, only leaves room for additional exceptions in narrowly defined situations of minor importance and subject to strict conditions. Here, the difference between the two approaches is more pronounced, with the proposal offering a broader and more flexible framework than what is currently available under EU law. Additional protections The comparison also shows that both the African Group proposal and EU law recognise the need for safeguards to ensure that limitations and exceptions remain effective in practice, although they approach this issue with different levels of generality. On

Africa: Copyright & Public Interest, Artificial Intelligence, TDM Cases

Case Studies of AI for Good and AI for Development

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Today the Geneva Centre on Knowledge Governance presents a series of Case Studies on AI for Good in Africa and the Global South. These grew out of our work on Text and Data Mining and our policy work in support of the Right to Research. Researchers in the Global South are responding to local and global challenges from health and education to language preservation and mitigation of climate change. In all these case computational methods and Artificial Intelligence (AI) play a leading role in finding and implementing solutions. A common thread that runs through all the cases is how intellectual property laws can support innovation and problem solving in the public interest, whilst protecting the interests of creators, communities and custodians of traditional knowledge. In addition several practitioners are looking at how to redress data imbalances, where large companies in the Global North have much greater access to works, for historical, legal and economic reasons. The cases include: Each of our case studies in written up in the form of a report, combined with a video exploration of the case study in the words of its leading practitioners.

Africa: Copyright & Public Interest, Blog

The South African Copyright Amendment Bill at the Constitutional Court: Notes from the Presidential Referral of the Bill (Part II)

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In Part I of this blogpost, I briefly set out the procedural history of the copyright reform process that led to the Presidential Referral of the Bill to the Constitutional Court. I also briefly explained the scope of Referral proceedings and the parties involved. In this Part, I discuss the issues raised during the hearing and what to expect going forward. Issues raised during the hearing In line with the Court’s past jurisprudence, the proceedings centred around the constitutionality of the two sets of provisions referred by the President on the basis that he referred them – the fair and equitable remuneration provisions and the new exceptions and limitations. I discuss the arguments raised regarding each set in turn. I focus here on the oral submissions – the full written submissions on record are available here. Fair and equitable remuneration (proposed sections 6A, 7A, 8A) On the fair and equitable remuneration provisions, the President remained concerned that these provisions apply retrospectively which, in his view, would constitute arbitrary deprivation of property. The President explained that although Parliament deleted the specific subsections that explicitly provided for the retrospective application of the provisions, he believed that the provisions were still applicable retrospectively. Retrospectivity, he argued, would constitute a substantial interference in the copyright owner’s enjoyment of their property (and the profits derived from it) as it would open up the possibility for windfall gains for authors notwithstanding whether their original historical assignment of copyright was unfair. Moreover, the President argued that the indiscriminate application of these provisions to all past and future assignments constituted an arbitrary deprivation of property. To prevent retrospective application, the President argued that it was necessary for the language of the provisions to explicitly state that they would apply prospectively. Underlying this argument, the President confirmed that in his view, copyright constituted a constitutionally protectable set of property interests. When questioned, the President conceded that should these provisions be read exclusively prospectively they would not be unconstitutional. The President’s initial position was supported by the Freedom Front Plus. It was also supported by the Democratic Alliance who argued that the only reasonable interpretation of these provisions was that they applied retrospectively to past and future profits derived from the exploitation of the work under copyright. On a prospective interpretation, the DA argued, the language that allows the existence of an agreement to the contrary in proposed section 6A(2) would render the provision a nullity. The DA also supported the proposition that these provisions ran the risk of arbitrarily depriving copyright owners of their property on the basis that there was a substantial interference with the right by significantly reducing its value, imposing uncertainty costs upon the entire industry and interfering with the contractual autonomy of the parties. Further, the DA argued that the lack of similar language in sections 7A and 8A was irrational – and although the President adopted this argument in his oral submissions, irrationality was not expressly part of the 2020 or 2024 Referral letter, raising the question whether the Court can consider it. NAB/SANEF/CFE aligned themselves with the arguments made by the President that these provisions had retrospective effect and ran the risk of arbitrarily changing the rights negotiated and acquired by broadcasters in the current regime, asserting that the broadcasting industry may face dire consequences as a result. Parliament, however, explained in their oral submissions that they had a clear legislative intent to ensure that the impugned provisions had prospective effect. This intent was demonstrated by the deletion of the relevant subsection from all three provisions, as acknowledged by the President, in addressing the reservations set out in his 2020 Referral letter. Recreate Action aligned with Parliament’s position on the deletion of the explicit retrospectivity provisions, and argued that there is a presumption against retrospectivity in the law. Where a provision can be read prospectively, it must be read in that manner. Recreate Action responded to the DA’s argument that a prospective reading of section 6A renders it a nullity by explaining that the non-obstante clause in that section would ensure its continued application. In any event, Recreate Action argued that even if the impugned provisions applied retrospectively, that did not in and of itself render them unconstitutional. To the extent that they were a deprivation of property, Recreate Action argued that even if copyright was incorporeal constitutional property, it required a lower threshold of justification for such deprivation, and that the deprivation only encompassed a single incident of ownership – the royalty right. Finally, Recreate Action responded to the claim of indiscriminate application as arbitrariness by explaining that the standards of ‘fairness’ and ‘equity’ in the text of these provisions act as levers to calibrate the application of these provisions to address unequal bargaining power and prevent any windfall gains.   In addition to testing these arguments, the Court raised concerns about the specificity of the President’s reservations with regard to these provisions. In particular, the Court was concerned as to whether Parliament had a meaningful opportunity to address the whole of these provisions – in other words, whether the President’s 2020 Referral letter flagged the whole of these provisions as triggering his reservations, or just the relevant subsection that explicitly provided for their retrospective application. If the Court were to find that the whole provisions were not referred to Parliament – to enable Parliament’s consideration of them prior to the Referral to the Court – this may bar the consideration of the merits. New exceptions including education and library exceptions (proposed sections 12A-D, 19B, C) I now turn to the second set of provisions that the President was concerned about – the new exceptions and limitations. The President argued that the exceptions and limitations sought to be introduced go too far and would conflict with the normal exploitation of the work and cause unreasonable prejudice to the rights holder. The President was also concerned that the fair use provision suffered from vagueness and introduced a level of uncertainty that could

Africa: Copyright & Public Interest, Blog

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN SOUTH AFRICA HIGHLIGHTS THE URGENCY OF COPYRIGHT REFORMS

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By ReCreate South Africa The cost of excluding billions of people in Africa and the Global South from access to knowledge could be huge for future generations. Knowledge-sharing in Africa is not always transactional, and the existing IP and copyright paradigms are not working well for creators or audiences on the continent. Creators are often poorly remunerated and in many cases audiences and students cannot afford access to knowledge and entertainment. Some global corporations take an extractive and exploitative approach to African creativity. Africa needs a new knowledge governance system to take into account the role of traditional and indigenous knowledge. These were the conclusions of an international conference entitled “Copyright and the Public Interest: Africa and the Global South” held last month in South Africa. The convenors were ReCreate South Africa, a coalition of creators and users of copyright material and the conference took place at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (3 February), at the University of Cape Town Library (5 February) and at Innovation City (6 February). This conference was a follow-on from ReCreate’s inaugural conference on the “Right to Research in Africa” held at the University of Pretoria and the University of Cape Town in January 2023. Conference partnered with Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP), the intergovernmental organisation, South Center, the University of Cape Town’s IP Unit, Mandela Institute, Law School and more. The conference was made possible by PIJIP and Arcadia, as well as Open Air. You can watch the full conference sessions online. IP as a tax on African Creativity: Protecting the Livelihoods of Creators In his opening input, Ben Cashdan, convener of ReCreate South Africa and former economic advisor to President Nelson Mandela, said that IP royalties are a de facto tax on Africa. “Income from IP royalties on all creativity, on all inventions around the world, topped $1 trillion in the past 24 months for the first time, and the United States gets about $130 billion of that. Africa gets a tiny fraction. Could that be because we don’t have creatives? Could that be because we don’t have actors, writers, musicians? Obviously not. The system operates in such a way that we don’t get the fruits of our labor here in this country and on this continent.” South African singer Mercy Pakela, whose music topped the charts in the 1980s, recounted how she had signed with record labels so that her music could be heard by music lovers around the world, but over 40 years later she still feels she has not received fair remuneration. Pakela said “I wish I knew then what I know now because then I did not know that it was business. I just wanted to be on stage. I thought it was just about talent.” Jack Devnarain, Chairperson of the South African Guild of Actors highlighted that many performers in Africa die poor due to the power imbalance between artists and their distributors or rights owners. He pointed a finger at those whose business models restrict the livelihoods of African performers and who are opposed to copyright reform.  “There are people, particularly the American-based organizations, the corporate giants in the Global North that are working very hard, and I’m talking about the publishers, the studios, the streamers, the broadcasters, that do not want South African actors to have a royalty earning right.” South Africa’s CAB and Why Teachers Need Fair Use The Copyright Amendment Bill (CAB), passed by Parliament in South Africa, but still awaiting the President’s signature, aims to solve the problem of exploitation of artists by introducing a right to fair royalties or equitable remuneration. The CAB also broadens access to knowledge for communities. Hence it addresses the needs of both constituencies, creators and users. The President has referred the Bill to the Constitutional Court over concerns that it may lead to arbitrary deprivation of property of rights holders. Advocate Iain Currie, lawyer for ReCreate raised questions around whether Intellectual Property is property in the traditional sense and also challenged the view that adjustments to Copyright laws in the public interest are arbitrary.  One of the main objectives of the CAB is to ensure that teachers and learners have access to educational materials, which is clearly a public interest goal. According to Dr Mugwena Maluleke, President of Education International, “there is a shocking shortage of 44 million teachers worldwide. A major catalyst for this shortage is the inability to attract and retain teachers due to inadequate conditions for providing quality teaching,” including a shortage of textbooks and learning materials. “Fair use in education is the key that unlocks the door to a world of knowledge and creativity, by allowing educators to utilize copyrighted materials in their teaching.”  Moreover “Fair copyright legislation is essential to enabling teachers to adapt and use the material and reach an increasingly diverse student body.”  Maluleke is also General Secretary of SADTU, the largest teachers union in South Africa, with a membership of over 250 000 teachers and workers.  Dr Sanya Samtani, Senior Researcher at the Mandela Institute in the Law Faculty at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg echoed these sentiments. “The Copyright Amendment Bill is an example of the state trying to regulate copyright, trying to fulfill its international obligations on copyright, and also its human rights obligations, which are constitutional and international in nature.” ‘AI for Good’ in Africa The conference considered the importance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in solving the world’s most pressing challenges, including climate change, pandemic responses and countering misinformation. Generative AI has understandably raised alarm bells amongst creatives. Professor Vukosi Marivate, Chair of Data Science at the University of Pretoria, described a project in which broadcast TV shows in South Africa could be used to train AI models to educate local communities about primary health care in indigenous African languages. Marivate said that a power reset needs to take place between local communities and Big Tech based in the Global North. This will allow AI to be used to protect

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