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During the last few days, the cryptocurrency community has been discussing the recent action taken by Craig Wrightâs lawyers against web portals that host the original Bitcoin white paper. Recently letters were sent to a number of websites requesting the removal of the paper due to alleged copyright infringement.
**Editorâs Update 1/21/21 @1:15 p.m. (EST): At some point during the day, the owner of the web portal bitcoin.org, Cobra, deleted his tweet (quoted below) concerning the locked white paper removal conversation on Github. The conversation was locked for being âtoo heated and limited conversation to collaborators.â
Bitcoin White Paper Copyright Allegations
The digital currency space is dealing with controversy once again, as a number of web portals like bitcoin.org have been sent notices from Craig Wrightâs legal team telling them to remove the Bitcoin white paper from their site. Wright has claimed for years now that he is Bitcoinâs inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, but Wright has never proven this to the greater community.
We've published a notice regarding CSW, the Bitcoin whitepaper, and Bitcoin Core's recent actions.https://t.co/M2jP4FS24i
â CĂžbra (@CobraBitcoin) January 21, 2021
Furthermore, Wright also claims to be the ârightful ownerâ of the bitcoin.org domain and alleges that a group of people took control of the site and altered information. The current owners of bitcoin.org deny Wrightâs claims and stress Wrightâs allegations are âwithout meritâ and the site refuses to comply.
âYesterday both bitcoin.org and bitcoincore.org received allegations of copyright infringement of the Bitcoin whitepaper by lawyers representing Craig Steven Wright,â the bitcoin.org statement about the incident details. âIn this letter, they claim Craig owns the copyright to the paper, the Bitcoin name, and ownership of bitcoin.org. They also claim he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, and the original owner of bitcoin.org. Bitcoin.org and Bitcoincore.org were both asked to take down the whitepaper. We believe these claims are without merit, and refuse to do so,â bitcoin.orgâs operators further insisted.
An attempt to add the Bitcoin whitepaper back to the Bitcoin Core Github was locked, despite proof the whitepaper is MIT licensed and the thread having almost no "trollling": https://t.co/LhUnXJhrdy
Total fear, and total capitulation. Bitcoin Core is dead as a project IMO.
â CĂžbra (@CobraBitcoin) January 21, 2021
The owner of the website bitcoin.org who goes by the pseudonym âCobraâ has also been tweeting about the recent claims made by Wrightâs lawyers. Moreover, Bitcoin Coreâs lead maintainer Wladimir Van Der Laan said on Github that the white paper âdoesnât necessarily need to be hosted here,â in reference to the website bitcoincore.org, which also received a notice from lawyers. âUnless anyone can point to an explicit place where Satoshi licensed it under a free license, legally it is safer to remove it from the bitcoin-core.org site,â Van Der Laan wrote.
Cobra didnât seem to appreciate Van Der Laanâs decision and tweeted about the legal letters. âYou let one legal letter force you into modifying Bitcoin Coreâs website and remove the whitepaper, at the request of CSW,â Cobra wrote in response to Van Der Laanâs tweet about the issue. âYou gave precedent and lent legitimacy to his claims, and made it more likely for his attack on bitcoin.org to succeed. No sympathy,â Cobraâs scathing critique further noted.
The current bitcoin.org domain owner also tweeted about how people can donate to the web portalâs legal fund against the white paper copyright claims.
Cobra tweeted:
If you want to contribute to /bitcoin.orgâs legal defence against CSWâs copyright claims over the whitepaper and alleged ownership of the domain. We have a donation address. We canât let this continue.
Crypto Proponents Scoff at Wrightâs Attempts Saying the Paper Is Open Source and Public Domain
The issues have become a hot topic on social media and crypto supporters have been discussing the alleged white paper copyright claims with great fervor. Many bitcoin proponents announced hosting the white paper on their websites. Bitcoin supporter Bruce Fenton told his 55,000 Twitter followers that the âBitcoin white paper is open source and in the public domain.â
âThe white paper was in the original repo that was licensed under MIT. CSW is clutching at straws here,â another person insisted. The Billfodl Twitter account exclaimed that it also refuses to take down the websiteâs hosted white paper as well.
âWe also refuse to take down our white paper, just like Cobra Bitcoin,â Billfodlâs Twitter account said. âCSW and Calvinâs goons donât scare us.â The bitcoin.org donation address for the organizationâs legal defense has started to receive a number of BTC donations since Cobra tweeted about the copyright infringement situation.
U.S. Copyright Office âDoes Not Investigate the Truth of Any Statement Madeâ
Moreover, there are other individuals who have claimed copyright ownership over the Bitcoin white paper in the past.
Wei Liu, a former executive at the bitcoin mining operation F2pool, registered a copyright for the Bitcoin white paper with ease, as he simply claimed to be the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto and the author of the paperâs text. In fact, a statement from the U.S. copyright office, in regard to Wrightâs copyright claim in 2019, said the government entity âdoes not investigate the truth of any statement made.â
What do you think about Craig Wrightâs latest claims? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
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