There’s an uncomfortable irony unfolding in real time: as artificial intelligence expands its grip across the global content ecosystem, African creators and publishers are being erased from the conversation and the compensation. The fight over AI and African content licensing isn’t theoretical. It’s here. And it’s rigged.
While media giants in the US, UK, and Europe are striking million-dollar licensing deals with OpenAI, Google, and other tech players, African content is being mined for training data, scraped, summarised, and served without attribution. No fees. No negotiation. No seat at the table.
It’s not just about money. It’s about memory. Voice. Identity. And if we don’t act fast, we risk handing over the cultural soul of a continent in exchange for invisible exposure.
The Silent Displacement of African Creativity
Let’s break this down.
Google’s AI Overviews already draw insights from hundreds of African publications, but how many of those publishers are being paid? How many even know? How many have the digital infrastructure to trace that usage, or the legal frameworks to respond?
Meanwhile, AI-generated avatars like South Africa’s Kim Zulu or Egypt’s Laila Khadraa are headlining brand campaigns. They wear African faces and speak African tongues, but who owns their code? Who profits from their reach?
The global creator economy is projected to exceed £13 billion by 2030. Africa contributes the colour, rhythm, storylines, and dialects, yet we’re left outside the licensing loop. This is not a tech issue; it’s an extraction issue. It’s colonialism with a neural net.
The Licensing Divide
Across Europe and North America, the licensing playbook is clear:
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The Associated Press licensed its archive to OpenAI.
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Axel Springer signed multimillion-dollar deals.
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The New York Times filed lawsuits to protect its IP.
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Shutterstock monetized its entire library for generative image training.
And Africa?
Crickets, save for some early movement in South Africa.
This exclusion isn’t just economic; it distorts the global perception of Africa. The datasets that train AI determine how stories are told, which voices are centered, and which cultures are rendered “known.” When those datasets rely on African content but exclude African ownership, they become tools of misrepresentation.
Why African Media Must Wake Up Now
The question isn’t whether our content is being used. It is.
The real question is: who gets paid? Who controls the story? And how do we build a system where African media, already underfunded, fragmented, and battling algorithmic disadvantage, can survive in an AI-dominated economy?
Here’s what’s urgent:
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Pan-African Alliance Building
We need a coalition of media houses, publishers, and creative unions, not just to protest, but to negotiate. Europe has ENPA. Australia has its bargaining code. We need a continental response, not siloed cries from Lagos or Nairobi. -
Copyright Reform and Digital Guardrails
Most African nations still operate on outdated IP laws. We need urgent updates that:-
Recognize AI training as a licensable use.
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Establish opt-in models.
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Create swift enforcement mechanisms.
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Support indigenous language preservation and metadata tagging.
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Digital Infrastructure Investment
Our servers can’t be in Seattle if our content is in Ibadan. Ownership starts with hosting, archiving, and indexing. Without technical capacity, no legal leverage holds water. -
Creator Compensation and Traceability Tools
Fingerprinting, watermarking, and blockchain tagging are not luxury tech — they’re survival tools. Content attribution must be automatic and enforceable. -
Engagement, Not Exclusion
African publishers must go on the offensive: pitch licensing models, initiate partnerships, and advocate for structured compensation schemes. This is not charity. It’s fair trade for intellectual labour.
What’s at Stake?
If African media stays passive, we’re not just missing out on revenue. We’re giving up narrative control. AI tools summarise, translate, and remix, but if those summaries exclude nuance, or those translations erase local idioms, we lose something deeper than income. We lose meaning.
And as AI chatbots become the new interface between knowledge and the world, the omission of African perspectives becomes a digital apartheid — invisible but deeply consequential.
The Next Move Is Ours
The world’s largest tech companies are building the future with our stories, languages, and faces. But whose future is it?
This isn’t about nostalgia for the analog age. It’s about ownership. The next decade will define who gets to profit from African creativity. If we don’t claim our share of licensing deals now, we may find ourselves locked out of the very platforms our content helped build.
So no, Africa’s creative soul is not for sale. But it must be licensed, on our terms.
