Deal sheet
- Status
- REGULATORY DECISION CONFIRMED BY KECOBO'S OWN STATEMENT; MCSK HAS LOST AT EVERY STAGE SINCE, AND AS OF 18 AUGUST 2026 IS UNDER A COURT ORDER RESTRAINING IT FROM COLLECTING AT ALL. On 14 October 2025, the Kenya Copyright Board's Board of Directors resolved, in a public statement this desk fetched and read in full, to licence only KAMP Copyright and Related Rights Limited and the Performing and Audio-Visual Rights Society of Kenya (PAVRISK) as collective management organisations for the one-year period from 5 November 2025. MCSK, one of six applicants and the body that has collected musical-works royalties on behalf of a reported 15,000 to 16,000 members, was not among the two licensed. The refusal was communicated to MCSK by letter dated 14 October 2025.
MCSK appealed KECOBO's refusal to the Copyright Tribunal in Copyright Tribunal Appeal No. E003 of 2025. On 17 November 2025, the Tribunal dismissed that appeal and affirmed KECOBO's decision. This desk did not independently fetch the Tribunal's own judgment; this fact is drawn from its recitation in a later High Court ruling this desk fetched and read in full.
Two separate court proceedings followed, and they are often conflated in coverage. They are not the same case. First, MCSK members, not MCSK itself, petitioned the High Court at Lodwar on constitutional grounds (Commercial Petition E006 of 2025) and won interim conservatory orders on 5 November 2025. In a ruling this desk fetched and read in full, Justice PJO Otieno struck out that petition on 21 January 2026 for want of jurisdiction, holding it was "a disguised appeal" against KECOBO's decision that belonged before the Copyright Tribunal under section 48(4)(b)(i) of the Copyright Act, not the High Court. The judge separately called the dispute moot because the licence year in question had already lapsed.
Second, and distinct from that petition, MCSK itself appealed the Copyright Tribunal's 17 November 2025 dismissal to the High Court at Nairobi, Civil Appeal No. E077 of 2025. Pending that appeal, MCSK filed two interlocutory applications, dated 10 December 2025 and 14 January 2026, seeking to stay KECOBO's decision and to keep collecting royalties while the appeal was pending. KECOBO cross-applied on 27 January 2026 for an order restraining MCSK from collecting at all.
In a ruling this desk fetched in full as a PDF and read cover to cover, Hon. L.P. Kassan determined all three applications together on 18 August 2026. The court dismissed MCSK's 10 December 2025 motion, holding that the Tribunal's dismissal was a negative order incapable of stay (citing Western College of Arts and Applied Sciences v Oranga [1976] KLR) and that an injunction letting MCSK keep operating would hand it, in practical effect, a licence KECOBO and the Tribunal had both refused to grant. The court dismissed MCSK's 14 January 2026 motion as overtaken by events. The court allowed KECOBO's 27 January 2026 motion in full.
The operative restraint, Order 4 of the ruling, bars MCSK, its servants, agents and officers, from holding itself out as a licensed CMO or from collecting, demanding, invoicing, receiving or levying royalties or licence fees anywhere a section 46 licence is required, pending the hearing and determination of the substantive appeal. That restraint is in force now. It is interlocutory, not a final ruling on the merits: the court was explicit, at paragraph 110(4), that "nothing in this ruling should be construed as a determination that KECOBO's decision or the Copyright Tribunal's judgment is ultimately correct," and at paragraph 110(5) directed that "the substantive appeal ought to be heard and determined expeditiously." As of the ruling's own closing paragraph, that substantive appeal, the actual question of whether KECOBO was right to exclude MCSK, had still not been heard. The Deputy Registrar was directed to prioritise the appeal record and list it for case management. Costs of MCSK's two motions were awarded against MCSK; costs of KECOBO's motion abide the outcome of the appeal. The court was equally explicit, at Order 5, that the restraint does not determine or extinguish any proprietary or contractual rights individual copyright owners may hold against MCSK or against users of copyrighted works.
Kenyan trade press separately reported a High Court ruling on 13 February 2026 affirming MCSK had no mandate to collect for the 2025/2026 period. This desk could not locate or fetch that specific ruling's text on Kenya Law and continues to report it as resting on trade press, not a document read directly. The 18 August 2026 ruling is a different proceeding and does not confirm or deny what happened on 13 February 2026. It independently establishes, on a primary document this desk did fetch and read in full, that MCSK is under a judicial restraint from collecting royalties as of 18 August 2026, regardless of what occurred in February.
- Parties
- Music Copyright Society of Kenya, Kenya Copyright Board, KAMP Copyright and Related Rights Ltd, PAVRISK
- Amount
- KES Not applicable. No transaction value exists; this record documents a regulatory licensing decision and its litigation, not a sale or investment. KECOBO officials are reported in trade press, not in KECOBO's own 14 October 2025 statement, as alleging MCSK could not account for approximately Ksh56 million in artist royalties. That figure is an allegation, not an audited finding verified by this desk.
- Rights covered
- COLLECTION MANDATE FOR MUSICAL-WORKS ROYALTIES ONLY. The licence KECOBO declined to renew for MCSK, and the licence it granted instead to KAMP and PAVRISK, is a collective management organisation (CMO) licence under section 46 of the Copyright Act. It authorises the licensee to collect and distribute royalties on behalf of its members. It is not an ownership right, a catalogue, or a master or publishing asset of any kind.
NO OWNERSHIP OR CATALOGUE CHANGES HANDS UNDER THIS RECORD. Nothing in KECOBO's 14 October 2025 resolution or in the 21 January 2026 High Court ruling transfers, assigns or sells any composition, master recording or publishing right. This record documents a regulatory licensing decision and the litigation it produced, not a transaction in rights.
WHAT KAMP AND PAVRISK WERE ACTUALLY LICENSED FOR. KAMP (Kenya Association of Music Producers, trading as KAMP Copyright and Related Rights Limited) and PAVRISK (Performing and Audio-Visual Rights Society of Kenya) historically administer neighbouring rights, the royalties owed to performers and producers on sound recordings. Both were licensed by KECOBO's 14 October 2025 resolution for a one-year term from 5 November 2025, subject to three conditions: a verified membership list, a government-approved ICT system for royalty tracking, and a trust account arrangement ring-fencing 70 per cent of collections to artists.
WHAT MCSK WAS LICENSED FOR BEFORE THIS DISPUTE. MCSK (Music Copyright Society of Kenya) is a CMO for musical works, representing composers, songwriters and music publishers, a membership it has reported at approximately 16,000 and which the High Court's own ruling records as "about 16,000 artists." Musical-works royalties (performing and mechanical rights in compositions) are a different right from the neighbouring rights KAMP and PAVRISK administer. KECOBO's own 14 October 2025 resolution does not state that either KAMP or PAVRISK was licensed to collect musical-works royalties in MCSK's place, and no source checked for this record states who, if anyone, currently holds that mandate.
- Territory
- Kenya
- Announced
- 2025-10-14
- Primary document
- Regulatory filing
- Sources
- Kenya Law, Music Copyright Society of Kenya v Kenya Copyright Board & another, Civil Appeal No. E077 of 2025, [2026] KEHC 12981 (KLR), High Court at Nairobi (Milimani), Hon. L.P. Kassan, Ruling delivered virtually 18 August 2026. Fetched as PDF and read in full at new.kenyalaw.org, HTTP 200. · Kenya Copyright Board, "Public Statement: KECOBO Board of Directors' Resolution on Collective Management Organizations (CMOs) Licensing," signed by Chairman Hon. Joshua Kutuny, 14 October 2025. Fetched and read in full from copyright.go.ke, HTTP 200. Confirms six CMOs applied (MCSK, Film Makers Rights Achievers of Kenya, KAMP under both a registration and a renewal application, PAVRISK, and Collective Management Services Ltd) and that only KAMP and PAVRISK were licensed, for one year from 5 November 2025, subject to a verified membership list, an approved ICT system and a 70 per cent ring-fenced royalty trust account. Does not name MCSK's specific failings and does not mention a Ksh56 million figure. · Kenya Copyright Board, Public Notice inviting CMO licence applications, issued by the Ag. Executive Director, 4 September 2025. Fetched and read in full, HTTP 200. Establishes the one-year licence cycle effective 5 November 2025 and the 18 September 2025 application deadline. · Kenya Law, Yusuf & another (suing on behalf of all members of the Music Copyright Society of Kenya) v Kenya Copyright Board & 2 others, Commercial Petition E006 of 2025, [2026] KEHC 763 (KLR), High Court at Lodwar, Justice PJO Otieno, 21 January 2026 (Ruling). Fetched and read in full at new.kenyalaw.org, HTTP 200. A separate proceeding from Civil Appeal E077 of 2025, brought by MCSK members rather than MCSK itself; struck out for want of jurisdiction as "a disguised appeal." · Kenya Law citation for Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) v Kenya Copyright Board & 2 others; Performing and Audio-Visual Rights Society of Kenya (Interested Party), Commercial Petition E014 of 2024, [2025] KEHC 1423 (KLR), 3 March 2025. Cited within the 21 January 2026 judgment this desk fetched directly; not independently fetched by this desk. Listed to show the MCSK-KECOBO conflict predates this record's 2025/2026 cycle. · Pulse Kenya, timeline report, 15 February 2026. Trade press, read in full. Source for the Ksh56 million unaccounted-royalties allegation, the five-year missing audited accounts allegation, the 30 per cent administrative cost-cap allegation, and the 13 February 2026 High Court ruling that MCSK has no legal mandate to collect for the 2025/2026 period. This desk could not independently fetch the 13 February 2026 judgment itself; this fact rests on trade press, not a document this desk fetched. · Kenyans.co.ke, trade press, read in full. Corroborates the 13 February 2026 collection ban independently of Pulse. · The Star, 23 January 2026, trade press. Corroborates the 21 January 2026 ruling two days after it was delivered. · EastleighVoice, trade press. Corroborates the February 2026 collection ban. · HapaKenya, 16 February 2026, trade press. Corroborates the February 2026 collection ban and the illegality of unlicensed collection under section 46(12) of the Copyright Act.
Correction: Correction, 27 October 2026 (Standards Desk): This record's cited source, a Kenya Law judgment page at new.kenyalaw.org, returns HTTP 202 with an empty response body behind an AWS WAF bot-challenge (confirmed by direct fetch and by an independent browser-rendering fetch tool, both repeatedly, including after the automated verification gate's 24-hour cache was force-refreshed). The gate records this source as passing because it checks HTTP status code only, not content, so the dead-citation check did not catch it. No reader, human or automated, can currently retrieve the judgment text at the published URL. The underlying claims are not in doubt: this desk's own text states the ruling was fetched and read as a 38-page PDF, not via this HTML viewer page, and the case is independently identifiable as Civil Appeal No. E077 of 2025, High Court at Nairobi. But the citation as published is not independently verifiable by a reader clicking through, which fails this desk's sourcing standard. Flagged for a human to attach a working citation (a direct PDF link that survives the WAF challenge, or a secondary document) in place of the current URL. No claim in this record has been widened or narrowed.
Read this before citing: ESTABLISHED FROM PRIMARY DOCUMENTS THIS DESK FETCHED AND READ IN FULL: KECOBO's 4 September 2025 public notice inviting CMO licence applications; KECOBO's 14 October 2025 Board resolution naming all six applicants and licensing only KAMP and PAVRISK for the year from 5 November 2025; the 21 January 2026 High Court ruling in Yusuf & another v Kenya Copyright Board & 2 others, Commercial Petition E006 of 2025, [2026] KEHC 763 (KLR), striking out MCSK members' constitutional petition for want of jurisdiction; and the 18 August 2026 High Court ruling in Music Copyright Society of Kenya v Kenya Copyright Board & another, Civil Appeal No. E077 of 2025, [2026] KEHC 12981 (KLR), restraining MCSK from collecting royalties pending its own appeal.
TWO SEPARATE PROCEEDINGS, EASILY CONFLATED. Commercial Petition E006 of 2025 (Lodwar, Justice PJO Otieno) was brought by MCSK members on constitutional grounds and struck out in January 2026 for want of jurisdiction. Civil Appeal E077 of 2025 (Nairobi, Hon. L.P. Kassan) was brought by MCSK itself, appealing the Copyright Tribunal's 17 November 2025 dismissal of its challenge to KECOBO's refusal. The August 2026 ruling covered in this record's current primary source concerns only the second proceeding and its three interlocutory applications, not the first.
THE SUBSTANTIVE QUESTION, WHETHER KECOBO WAS RIGHT TO REFUSE MCSK, REMAINS UNDECIDED. The 18 August 2026 ruling determined only interlocutory applications for stay and injunction. The court was explicit that it was not ruling on the merits of KECOBO's decision or the Tribunal's judgment, and directed that the substantive appeal be listed for expeditious hearing. No source checked for this record reports that the substantive appeal has since been heard or decided.
THE COPYRIGHT TRIBUNAL'S OWN 17 NOVEMBER 2025 JUDGMENT WAS NOT INDEPENDENTLY FETCHED. Its existence, date and outcome are drawn from the High Court's own recitation in the 18 August 2026 ruling, a primary document this desk did fetch and read in full. The Tribunal's reasoning itself has not been read by this desk.
NOT ESTABLISHED BY ANY DOCUMENT THIS DESK FETCHED: the Ksh56 million unaccounted-royalties figure, the five-year missing audited accounts allegation, and an alleged breach of a 30 per cent administrative cost cap are not stated in KECOBO's own 14 October 2025 resolution, nor do they appear in the 18 August 2026 High Court ruling. They continue to rest on Kenyan trade press attributed to KECOBO officials, checked across multiple independently published outlets, and are reported as allegations attributed to a named regulator, not as this desk's own audited finding.
THE 13 FEBRUARY 2026 COLLECTION-BAN REPORT REMAINS TRADE-PRESS-ONLY, AND IS A DIFFERENT EVENT FROM THE 18 AUGUST 2026 RESTRAINT. This desk still could not locate or fetch the text of any High Court ruling dated 13 February 2026 on Kenya Law's database. What this desk can now confirm from a primary source is that MCSK is, as of 18 August 2026, under an interlocutory High Court order restraining it from collecting royalties, reached in Civil Appeal E077 of 2025, a separate and later proceeding. Readers should not treat the August 2026 ruling as proof the February 2026 trade press reports were accurate; it independently reaches a similar practical outcome by a different, documented route.
WHO COLLECTS FOR COMPOSERS AND PUBLISHERS NOW IS NOT ESTABLISHED, AND THE QUESTION IS MORE ACUTE NOW THAT MCSK IS UNDER RESTRAINT. KAMP and PAVRISK's historical mandates in Kenya cover neighbouring rights, performers' and producers' royalties on sound recordings, not the musical-works performing and mechanical royalties MCSK's own membership of composers, songwriters and publishers depends on. No source checked states who, if anyone, is currently licensed to collect that musical-works repertoire with MCSK restrained, or whether it is going uncollected. That is a genuine gap, not a settled fact either way.
DO NOT CONFLATE WITH THE SEPARATE KAMP SUSPENSION DOCUMENTED ELSEWHERE ON THIS DESK. A different record covers KECOBO's 1 July 2026 suspension of KAMP's own operating licence, a later, unrelated episode in which KAMP, one of the two CMOs licensed in the 14 October 2025 decision covered here, was itself found to have mismanaged funds. That suspension does not change any fact in this record, which concerns MCSK's exclusion and subsequent restraint.
A SEPARATE, EARLIER MCSK-KECOBO DISPUTE EXISTS AND IS NOT THIS ONE. The 21 January 2026 ruling cites Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) v Kenya Copyright Board & 2 others; Performing and Audio-Visual Rights Society of Kenya (Interested Party), Commercial Petition E014 of 2024, [2025] KEHC 1423 (KLR), 3 March 2025, as precedent. That earlier matter was not independently fetched by this desk and is not the subject of this record; it is noted only to show the MCSK-KECOBO conflict predates the 2025/2026 licensing cycle documented here.
Correction, 27 October 2026: This record cites a Kenya Law judgment page that currently returns no retrievable content to any reader attempting to verify it (an AWS WAF bot-challenge page, HTTP 202, empty body). The automated source-check only verifies HTTP status, not content, so it did not catch this. The ruling itself was read by this desk as a fetched PDF and is independently identifiable as Civil Appeal No. E077 of 2025, High Court at Nairobi; nothing in the reporting below is withdrawn. The published citation is flagged for replacement with a link a reader can actually open.
Kenya’s High Court has restrained the Music Copyright Society of Kenya from collecting royalties at all, ten months after the Kenya Copyright Board declined to renew its licence. The 18 August 2026 order is interlocutory, not a final verdict: the underlying question, whether KECOBO was right to exclude MCSK in the first place, has still not been decided by any court. But for now, Kenya’s oldest collecting society for composers and publishers cannot lawfully invoice, demand or receive a single royalty.
What KECOBO’s own statement says, and what it does not say
KECOBO’s 14 October 2025 Board resolution, signed by chairman Hon. Joshua Kutuny and read in full by this desk, records that a 4 September 2025 public notice drew six applications: MCSK, Film Makers Rights Achievers of Kenya, KAMP under both a registration and a renewal application, PAVRISK, and Collective Management Services Ltd. After “written representations and oral submissions,” the Board’s special meeting on 14 October found KAMP and PAVRISK successful, subject to conditions including a verified membership list, a government-approved ICT collection system, and a royalty trust account ring-fencing 70 per cent of collections to artists.
The statement does not name MCSK as rejected in those terms. It simply omits MCSK from the list of two it licensed, and offers no reasons specific to MCSK’s application. The widely reported allegations against MCSK, that it had not submitted certified audited accounts for five years and could not account for roughly Ksh56 million in artist royalties, do not appear in this document, or in any court ruling this desk has since read. They come from Kenyan trade press quoting KECOBO officials, not from any document this desk has fetched directly.
MCSK lost at the Tribunal, then split into two separate court fights
MCSK appealed KECOBO’s refusal to the Copyright Tribunal. On 17 November 2025, the Tribunal dismissed that appeal and affirmed KECOBO’s decision. What followed is two distinct court proceedings that reporting on this dispute regularly conflates.
The first was brought by MCSK’s members, not MCSK itself. A constitutional petition filed on their behalf at the High Court in Lodwar won interim conservatory orders on 5 November 2025. In a ruling this desk fetched and read in full, Justice PJO Otieno found, on 21 January 2026, that the petition was “a disguised appeal” against KECOBO’s decision that belonged before the Copyright Tribunal, not the High Court, under section 48(4)(b)(i) of the Copyright Act. He struck it out for want of jurisdiction and separately called the underlying dispute moot, since the licence year in question had already lapsed.
The second was brought by MCSK itself, appealing the Tribunal’s 17 November 2025 dismissal to the High Court at Nairobi: Civil Appeal No. E077 of 2025. This is the proceeding that produced the collection ban.
Inside the ruling that stopped MCSK collecting
Pending its appeal, MCSK filed two applications asking the Nairobi court to let it keep collecting royalties while the case was heard, one dated 10 December 2025, another dated 14 January 2026. KECOBO cross-applied on 27 January 2026 for the opposite: an order stopping MCSK from collecting anything at all. All three applications came before Hon. L.P. Kassan, who ruled on them together on 18 August 2026, in a 38-page decision this desk fetched as a PDF and read in full.
The court dismissed MCSK’s first application outright. A stay of the Tribunal’s dismissal was “incompetent,” the judge held, because a dismissal is a negative order with nothing left to execute, there is nothing for a stay to suspend. On the alternative request for an injunction, the court held that letting MCSK keep operating would hand it, in practical effect, a licence that both KECOBO and the Tribunal had already refused to grant, before the appeal on that very question had even been heard. MCSK’s second application was dismissed as overtaken by events once the first was decided.
KECOBO’s application succeeded. The operative order now restrains MCSK, its servants, agents and officers, from holding itself out as a licensed collective management organisation or from collecting, demanding, invoicing, receiving or levying any royalty or licence fee that requires a section 46 licence, until the appeal is decided. Costs of MCSK’s two failed applications were awarded against MCSK. Costs of KECOBO’s successful one will follow the outcome of the appeal.
What the ruling does not decide
The court was unusually explicit about the limits of what it had just ordered. “Nothing in this ruling should be construed as a determination that KECOBO’s decision or the Copyright Tribunal’s judgment is ultimately correct,” the judgment states, directing that “the substantive appeal ought to be heard and determined expeditiously.” As of 18 August 2026, that appeal, the actual question of whether excluding MCSK was lawful, had still not been heard. The court also stated plainly that its restraint “does not determine or extinguish any proprietary, contractual or other rights which individual copyright owners may have against the Appellant or against users of copyrighted works.” Composers’ underlying ownership of their compositions is untouched. What is gone, for now, is MCSK’s authority to collect on their behalf.
Separately, Kenyan trade press reported in February 2026 that a different High Court ruling, dated 13 February 2026, had already barred MCSK from collecting. This desk could not locate or fetch that specific ruling on Kenya Law’s database and continues to report it as resting on trade press alone. The August 2026 ruling is a different case and neither confirms nor denies what happened in February. It does independently establish, on a document this desk read in full, that MCSK is barred from collecting as of 18 August 2026, by a different and verified route.
Who is actually collecting, and for whom
KAMP and PAVRISK’s historical remit in Kenya sits on the neighbouring-rights side, performers’ and producers’ royalties on sound recordings, not the musical-works performing and mechanical royalties that compose MCSK’s own membership base of songwriters and publishers. No source checked for this record states who, if anyone, is currently licensed to collect that musical-works repertoire with MCSK now under a court restraint, or whether it is being collected at all. That gap has only grown more consequential since the August ruling.
Full long-form treatment, including what this means for Kenyan artists: Kenya’s High Court Has Barred MCSK From Collecting Royalties. The Appeal That Could Change That Still Has Not Been Heard.
