Uganda: A Critical Examination of Authorship, Ownership and Legal

Generative artificial intelligence enables users to produce text, images, music and software through processes in which human contributions vary considerably. This creates uncertainty about copyright protection and commercial ownership in Uganda. This article examines the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act, Cap 222, as amended in May 2026, alongside Ugandan copyright decisions, international instruments and selected comparative authorities. It adopts a qualitative doctrinal and comparative methodology, distinguishing the eligibility of an output for protection from the allocation and enforcement of any rights that subsist. The analysis finds that Uganda's framework can accommodate original human expression created with technological assistance, but does not expressly resolve the status of output produced without an identifiable human expressive contribution. The statutory treatment of employers and commissioning parties cannot safely be treated as an automatic entitlement to copyright in every machine output. Further uncertainty concerns the evidential treatment of prompts, the scope of protection in mixed works, contractual overstatement of ownership, moral rights and the relationship between output protection and infringement. The article proposes a contribution-based assessment that identifies the claimed expression, traces human decisions embodied in it, determines the scope of protection and then addresses ownership and third-party rights. It recommends targeted statutory clarification, practical guidance from the Uganda Registration Services Bureau, proportionate evidence preservation and improved contractual drafting. The preferred approach protects demonstrable human authorship while requiring evidence before any new exclusive right is introduced for substantially autonomous output.