The saga over the copyright of the Bitcoin whitepaper, held by Craig Wright, has a new chapter.
The lawyers of the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, the law firm ONTIER LLP, have announced that they have been given the green light by the Court of London to take legal action for copyright infringement against Cøbra, the pseudonym behind the editor of the Bitcoin.org website. The reason for the dispute is that it published the whitepaper without the consent of Craig Wright, who, according to the lawyers, is the author of that document:
“Dr Wright owns the copyright to the White Paper, which he authored and first released in October 2008 under the now-famous moniker ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’.”
Craig Wright had asked Bitcoin.org last January to remove the Bitcoin whitepaper from the site. But the operators had refused. The matter didn’t end there as COPA, the blockchain patent association, which is owned by Jack Dorsey’s Square, subsequently filed a lawsuit against Craig Wright to have a judge determine who owns the copyright to the Bitcoin whitepaper.
The implications of Craig Wright’s lawsuit over the Bitcoin whitepaper
A judge’s ruling could be a turning point in Bitcoin’s history. Craig Wright’s lawsuit aims to establish who is the true creator of Bitcoin and the author of the whitepaper.
Craig Wright’s argument is that Bitcoin.org, by promoting Bitcoin Core, is not respecting the contents of Bitcoin’s whitepaper, which aimed at the creation of an electronic payment method. With the lawsuit, or rather with the lawsuits currently underway, the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto is probably also aiming at this: to show that the Bitcoin.org community does not respect the original project (and thus also to get recognition for Bitcoin SV, the cryptocurrency he promoted, which is not by chance called “Satoshi Vision”).
Nevertheless, with his legal actions, Craig Wright claims that he wants to spread the culture about Bitcoin and not the other way around:
He stated in this regard:
“I would like people to understand bitcoin. Primarily, it is a system that has been designed as electronic cash with an immutable record that allows for traceability. As a micropayment system, there is no need for organisations to handle AML/KYC, and any small transaction system that is set up does not require the implementation of the know your customer rules”.
Instead, Craig Wright argues, far too many organizations want to know the identity of the person using Bitcoin while Bitcoin’s whitepaper kept the identity of the user off the blockchain.
The lawsuit will also be a way to establish the proper use of Bitcoin:
“I welcome this opportunity to have the foundational aspects of bitcoin explained through court and to finally dispel the false mythology that has been created around my system”.
