The Bitcoin white paper has been re-uploaded to Bitcoin.org following Craig Wright’s unsuccessful legal attempt to prove he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of the protocol.
Hennadii Stepanov, who maintains Bitcoin.org, announced the return of the Bitcoin white paper by sharing a PDF link on platform X.
Due to legal restrictions, Bitcoin.org had to limit access to the white paper for users in the UK. Instead, it displayed a quote from Satoshi Nakamoto: “It takes advantage of the nature of information being easy to spread but hard to stifle.”
In 2021, Wright won a copyright infringement lawsuit against Cobra, the anonymous group managing the website, which led to the removal of the white paper PDF. Wright won by default because Cobra chose not to defend the case, resulting in Cobra paying £35,000 ($40,100) in Wright’s legal fees. Wright had registered for U.S. copyright on the Bitcoin white paper in 2019.
In 2023, Wright sued 13 Bitcoin Core developers and companies, including Blockstream, Coinbase, and Block, for copyright violations concerning the Bitcoin white paper, its file format, and database rights to the Bitcoin blockchain.
The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund responded, highlighting the pattern of abusive lawsuits against prominent Bitcoin contributors. These lawsuits, according to the defense fund, deter development due to the associated time, stress, expenses, and legal risks.
Wright’s copyright win has now been invalidated, as his claims of being Satoshi Nakamoto and authoring the white paper have been debunked. This ruling emerged from a case brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a coalition of companies aiming to prevent Wright from claiming ownership of Bitcoin’s core intellectual property.
COPA accused Wright of engaging in a scheme of forgery and deceit to fabricate evidence supporting his claim to be Nakamoto. Consequently, a UK court froze Wright’s assets, worth 6.7 million British pounds ($8.4 million), to prevent him from avoiding court expenses.
The Bitcoin white paper is now under an MIT open-source license, allowing anyone to reuse and modify the code for any purpose.
May 2024, Cryptoniteuae
