Kenya Copyright Board
Kenya's government copyright regulator, which licenses and supervises the country's music collecting societies.
- Based in
- Nairobi, Kenya
- Founded
- Established under Kenya's Copyright Act, 2001
- Website
- copyright.go.ke
The Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) is the Kenyan government’s statutory copyright regulator, established under the Copyright Act, 2001. It is not a rights holder or a collecting society itself; instead it registers copyright works, licenses and supervises the Collective Management Organisations that do collect music royalties on the ground, and runs public-awareness and anti-piracy enforcement work.
KECOBO’s oversight role has been central to a series of disputes in Kenya’s recorded-music sector. It has periodically withheld or refused to renew CMO licences over compliance failures: in 2026, Kenya’s High Court confirmed that the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) had been operating without a valid licence after KECOBO declined to renew it, citing MCSK’s failure to submit audited accounts for five years, leaving PAVRISK as the only body then licensed to collect. KECOBO also enforces the rule that a CMO must disburse at least 70% of what it collects to artists, a threshold that has itself been a recurring flashpoint with musicians over low payouts.
As a government agency, KECOBO sits outside the commercial music business, but its licensing decisions directly determine which private collecting societies, including KAMP and PAVRISK, are legally allowed to operate in Kenya.
