The self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor Craig Wright has achieved partial success in a Bitcoin copyright lawsuit before a British court against the operator or operators: in the website Bitcoin.org. The BSV rate rises in double digits.
In 2019, Craig Wright shocked the crypto community when he filed a copyright on the Bitcoin Code and the white paper. At the same time, Wright launched a legal campaign against numerous crypto personalities whom he felt defamed for publicly doubting that he was Satoshi Nakamoto. Lawsuits went to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and crypto influencer Hodlonaut, among others. Wright’s lawyers have also sent mail to “Cøbra”, the anonymous operator (s) of the Bitcoin website Bitcoin.org. The accusation: Bitcoin.org dared to host the Bitcoin whitepaper without copyright holder Dr. Ask Craig Wright for permission beforehand.
Craig Wright wins Bitcoin copyright litigation
Craig Wright was able to achieve partial success against Bitcoin.org before the High Court in London. This was announced by his law firm on June 28 in a press release With. The responsible judge then asked the operator (s) on the Bitcoin.org website to remove the whitepaper from the site. In addition, Cøbra must post a copy of the judgment on the website for six months and pay Wright’s legal costs.
In order to protect his or her anonymity, Cøbra decided not to defend himself against the allegations. The judgment is therefore a “default judgment”. For Wright’s lawyer, however, that doesn’t diminish the victory:
This is an important development in Dr. Wright endeavors to have his copyright on his whitepaper enforced in court. Although he won a default victory today due to the absence of a defense, it is noteworthy that the English court still banned “Cøbra” from making the whitepaper available in the UK.
Craig Wright’s attorney Simon Cohen via PR Newswire
It is not yet clear whether Cøbra will comply with the judgment. At the time of going to press, the whitepaper can still be downloaded from bitcoin.org in various languages - also using a UK proxy server. The Cøbra account on Twitter also sends ambivalent signals. For example, Cøbra dropped a tweet by saying that they were “happy” to take on Wright’s litigation costs. However, the tweet does not come without a swipe at Wright’s credibility.
I am happy to pay Craig his cost on the Bitcoin whitepaper case. What does a BTC payment sound like to the address associated with block # 9?
Cøbra via Twitter
With this, Cøbra is alluding to one of the cases in which Craig Wright failed to provide definitive evidence for his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.
Is Craig Wright Satoshi Nakamoto?
In 2016, Wright “signed” a message with a supposed private key that should belong to Satoshi Nakamoto. At first it looked like Wright had provided tangible evidence that he invented Bitcoin. Even Bitcoin Core developer Gavin Andreesen, who was also present at the demonstration, was convinced. Later it turned out that Wright’s action had proven nothing – at most his ability to operate and code a block explorer. The bitcoin community later dismantled Wright’s claim. For example, the IT security expert Dan Kaminsky Wright, who only died in April 2021, had maneuvers in a detailed blog post understood. He succeeded in reconstructing Wright’s alleged Satoshi hash. Conclusion:
It’s a hash extracted from the blockchain itself. Of course the blockchain is completely public and of course has signatures from Satoshi, so it’s not surprising that Wright is able to take a signature from there.
In addition, during the trial against Ira Kleiman, the brother and administrator of Bitcoin veteran Dave Kleiman, the Australian had a list of thousands of Bitcoin addresses drawn up on which he raised Wright. They are said to be part of the legendary “Tulip Trust”, in which a total of one million BTC is stored. The problem: A little later, a message surfaced on the web, which Craig Wright described as a “liars and cheats”. The message was cryptographically signed by a person holding the private keys to 144 Bitcoin addresses that Craig Wright claimed to be his own.
BSV course rises after whitepaper judgment
The course of Craig Wright’s Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) is printing a daily plus of 22 percent at the time of going to press. BSV is a fork of the BTC Fork Bitcoin Cash, which relies on even larger blocks.
Craig Wright’s wave of warnings against Hodlonaut and Co. has caused some Bitcoin exchanges – including Binance – to delist BSV. So far it does not look as if the growth of BSV will come at the expense of the original.