THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE: LEGISLATIVE SILENCE, ADMINISTRATIVE FRAGMENTATION, AND THE CASE FOR A COMPREHENSIVE AI-COPYRIGHT FRAMEWORK IN KENYA'S COPYRIGHT AND RELATED RIGHTS BILL 2026

This article examines seven critical legislative gaps in Kenya's Copyright and Related Rights Bill 2026, a landmark reform instrument that, across seventy-eight pages, does not mention artificial intelligence once. Employing a doctrinal and comparative methodology, the article analyses the Bill against the Copyright Act (Cap 130) 2001, the Data Protection Act 2019, and the constitutional framework of Kenya 2010. It reads and extends the Aryeh Movement Limited v Cynthia Beldina Akoth Okello decision as the foundational jurisprudential statement on AI authorship in Kenyan law. The seven gaps identified are: the absence of a text and data mining framework; the failure to codify AI authorship doctrine beyond Aryeh Movement; the lack of platform liability provisions; institutional fragmentation between five regulatory bodies; the absence of AI labelling obligations; the failure to mandate training data disclosure; and the absence of any creator remuneration mechanism for AI training use. The article proposes model legislative amendments and institutional reforms calibrated to Kenya's developmental context, drawing on comparative analysis of the EU AI Act 2024 and the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.