Craig Wright wins default judgment, Bitcoin.org must remove Bitcoin white paper

Bitcoin.org must now remove the Bitcoin white paper, host a notice referring to the court’s judgment, and pay $48,600 to cover Wright’s legal costs.

Self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto and Bitcoin SV proponent Craig Wright has won a legal battle claiming copyright infringement on the part of Bitcoin.org for hosting the Bitcoin white paper.

Wright won by default after the website’s pseudonymous owner, “Cøbra,” chose not to mount a defense.

Bitcoin.org must now remove the white paper and display a notice referring to the judgment and cough up at least 35,000 British pounds ($48,600) to cover Wright’s legal costs. Cøbra responded to the ruling on Twitter: 

I don’t think you could get a better advertisement of *why* Bitcoin is necessary than what happened today.

Rules enforced through cryptography are far more superior than rules based on whoever can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in court.

— Cøbra (@CobraBitcoin) June 28, 2021

Onter LLP, Wright’s legal representation, celebrated the victory as “an important development in Dr Wright’s quest to obtain judicial vindication of his copyright in his White Paper.” 

“Dr Wright does not wish to restrict access to his White Paper,” wrote Onter senior associate, Simon Cohen. “However, he does not agree that it should be used by supporters and developers of alternative assets, such as Bitcoin Core, to promote or otherwise misrepresent those assets as being Bitcoin given that they do not support or align with the vision for Bitcoin as he set out in his White Paper.”

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In January, Wright issued letters to Bitcoin.org, Bitcoin.com and Bitcoincore.org, demanding they remove copies of the Bitcoin white paper from their websites and asserting they were infringing his intellectual property.

In April, Wright received permission to serve Cøbra outside of United Kingdom jurisdiction by email, with the Bitcoin.org operator having 22 days to respond from April 26.

Last month, Cøbra tweeted that they had missed the deadline. Responding to speculation, they may have missed the deadline to maintain anonymity, Cobra said: “No. I didn’t show up because defending against nonsense is a waste of time.”