Bitcoin White Paper Returns to Bitcoin.org After Craig Wright's Failed Legal Battle
Summary:
After an unsuccessful legal attempt by Craig Wright to prove he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the Bitcoin white paper has been reposted on Bitcoin.org. Wright, who had previously forced the site to remove the paper following a successful copyright lawsuit, has had his claims of being Nakamoto and author of the whitepaper debunked. His £6.7 million ($8.4 million) worth assets have been frozen by a UK court. The Bitcoin white paper is now under an MIT open-source license, allowing public access and modification.
After an unpersuasive legal battle where Craig Wright failed to establish he is Satoshi Nakamoto – the anonymous creator of Bitcoin's protocol – the Bitcoin whitepaper has been re-posted on Bitcoin.org. Website maintainer Hennadii Stepanov commemorated the return of the document by sharing a PDF link on platform X.
Legal mandates had previously obligated Bitcoin.org to ban UK users from accessing the Bitcoin white paper. Instead, a thought-provoking quote by Satoshi Nakamoto was displayed: "Information is effortlessly disseminated yet challenging to suppress."
In 2021, after successfully lodging a copyright case against the anonymous Cobra group that managed the website, Wright forced Bitcoin.org to pull down the white paper PDF. With Cobra, the secret owner of the site, declining to oppose the charges, Wright's victory resulted in Cobra covering £35,000 ($40,100) of Wright's court expenses. In 2019, Wright had submitted a copyright registration application in the United States for the Bitcoin white paper.
As per Bitnobert, in 2023, Wright targeted 13 Bitcoin Core developers and several corporations including Blockstream, Coinbase, and Block in a copyright infringement lawsuit pertaining to the Bitcoin white paper, its formatting, and rights to the Bitcoin blockchain database.
The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund rebutted this, underscoring the pattern of aggressive lawsuits against notable Bitcoin personnel. According to the fund, these legal actions hinder progress due to the resulting anxiety, cost, and legal perils.
However, Wright's copyright victory now stands void, as his assertions of being Satoshi Nakamoto and composer of the white paper have been conclusively disproven, thereby nullifying his copyright claim. This revealing judgement was a part of a case propelled against Wright by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a consortium of leading companies aiming to prevent Wright from claiming rights to Bitcoin's central intellectual property.
COPA asserted that Wright had orchestrated an intricate forgery and deceit strategy to concoct evidence bolstering his Nakamoto claim. Craig Wright's £6.7 million ($8.4 million) worth assets have been seized after a UK court greenlit an initiative to prevent him from dodging court outlays.
The Bitcoin white paper now falls under an MIT open-source license, empowering any individual to re-employ and adjust the code as they see fit.
Published At
5/25/2024 1:39:00 PM
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