KAMPALA – The Commercial Court has ruled against Monitor Publications Limited and several of its journalists in a landmark judgment involving copyright infringement, defamation and unlawful processing of personal data, ordering the media house to compensate businessman Silver Kayondo and permanently restraining further publication of the disputed content.

In the judgment delivered on July 27, 2026, the court found that Monitor Publications unlawfully reproduced and altered Kayondo’s social media posts before republishing them in newspaper and online articles without his consent. The court held that the publications amounted to copyright infringement, false attribution, defamation, negligence and unlawful processing of personal data.

The dispute arose after the media house published stories based on Kayondo’s social media posts, which the court found had been modified in a manner that changed their original meaning while attributing the altered content to him.

In its decision, the court emphasized that social media posts are capable of attracting copyright protection where they satisfy the legal requirements for original literary works. It further held that media organizations have a duty to accurately attribute and verify content before publication, even when relying on information obtained from public online platforms.

The court also found that the defendants failed to exercise reasonable editorial care and that the republication of Kayondo’s personal information without lawful justification breached Uganda’s data protection framework.

As part of the remedies, the court issued permanent injunctions restraining further infringement and awarded damages to Kayondo for copyright infringement, defamation and the unlawful processing of his personal data.

Legal observers say the ruling is likely to have significant implications for Uganda’s media industry, particularly in the use of social media content in news reporting. The judgment reinforces the obligation on publishers to verify online material, preserve its original context, properly attribute authorship and comply with copyright and data protection laws when reproducing digital content.

The decision is expected to serve as an important reference for future disputes involving copyright, digital journalism, defamation and the use of personal data in Uganda’s rapidly evolving media landscape.