Kampala, Uganda: The Commercial Court in Kampala has awarded advocate and digital content creator Silver Kayondo Shs185 million in damages after finding Monitor Publications Limited, Africa Broadcasting Uganda Ltd (NTV Uganda) and two co-defendants liable for copyright infringement, false attribution, defamation, negligence, misappropriation of personality, and unlawful processing of personal data arising from the unauthorised republication and alteration of his X (formerly Twitter) post.
In a judgment delivered on 27 July 2026, the court’s Acting Judge, Dr. Ginamia Melody Ngwatu, held that the defendants copied Kayondo’s social media content, altered its meaning, attributed words to him that he had never written or spoken, and published the material without his consent.
The judge held that Kayondo’s X posts constitute protected literary works under Uganda’s Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act. “Any work that has been reduced to material form ceases to be an opinion or a mere view. It becomes one’s expression.”
The dispute arose after Monitor and NTV published a story concerning Uganda’s negotiations with the World Bank, in which statements including “Lenders push value for their shareholders” and “Uganda, as a donor-dependent country, may be left with little choice but to adhere” were attributed to Kayondo.
The court found that these statements did not appear in Kayondo’s original X post and had been falsely attributed to him after his content was altered.
Justice Ngwatu ruled that copyright subsisted in Kayondo’s original X posts because they constituted original literary works reduced into material form. The court rejected the defendants’ argument that the posts were merely unprotectable ideas or opinions, holding instead that once ideas are expressed in a tangible form, they qualify for copyright protection under Uganda’s Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act.
The court further found that although the defendants acknowledged Kayondo as the source, they nevertheless copied, altered and distorted his work without consent, defeating their reliance on fair use and fair dealing.
Justice Ngwatu further observed that what mattered was not how the defendants obtained access to the content, but that they copied and mutilated it without authorisation.
On the defamation claim, the court held that the false attribution damaged Kayondo’s professional reputation as an advocate specialising in corporate, commercial and international finance matters.
Evidence before the court showed that the publication reached a wide audience through the defendants’ online platforms and continued to circulate through secondary publishers and artificial intelligence platforms, amplifying the reputational harm.
Monitor and NTV argued that their publication amounted to fair use because the article acknowledged Kayondo and dealt with a matter of public interest.
But the court disagreed.
Justice Ngwatu ruled that acknowledgment alone does not justify altering another person’s work. “What is important is that the defendants accessed and copied, altered, distorted and mutilated it without his consent.”
Justice Ngwatu also concluded that the defendants negligently altered Kayondo’s work and unlawfully processed his personal data by publishing fictitious statements under his name without his knowledge or consent, contrary to Uganda’s Data Protection and Privacy Act.
The court awarded Shs165 million in general damages, Shs20 million in aggravated damages, and interest of 12% per annum on the general damages from the date of judgment until payment in full, plus interest at 6% per annum on the aggravated damages from the date of judgment until payment in full.
The Judge also ordered a permanent injunction restraining the defendants from further infringing Kayondo’s copyright and personality rights, and an order requiring the defendants to publish a public apology in both their print and online platforms clarifying that Kayondo was not the source of the falsely attributed opinions.
The ruling also directed NTV Uganda to remove the infringing content, with immediate effect, and to also bear the cost of the suit.
The judgment is likely to become a significant precedent in Uganda’s developing jurisprudence on copyright protection for digital content, the legal consequences of altering social media posts before republication, and the intersection between intellectual property, defamation and data protection law.
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