Wright will not be able to restrict the operation of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.
Craig Wright has lost a legal battle in the United Kingdom that would have allowed him to block the operation of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, as revealed in a court document on Feb. 7.
In his statement, Wright argued that Bitcoin SV — his minority fork of Bitcoin — is the original version of the Bitcoin blockchain. He argued that whenever the software is executed, Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash reuse elements of Bitcoin to which he has rights. Therefore, Wright aims to prevent the operation of both chains.
Wright also claimed that the inclusion of the Bitcoin whitepaper in block 230,009 of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash violated his copyright.
Judge James Mellor said that while Wright’s copyright claim to the bitcoin white paper “raises serious questions for trial,” today’s ruling focused only on whether Wright’s claim to the bitcoin file format posed a serious question for trial.
Judge Mellor acknowledged Wright’s attempt to have the copyright in the Bitcoin file format treated as a literary work. The judge noted that the term “literary work” can include a wide variety of subject matter, including computer software and non-human-readable data.
However, it does not apply in this case. Judge Mellor said that based on the evidence, simply running a Bitcoin node to create new blocks in the Bitcoin file format did not meet the fixation or sufficient identifiability requirement. Copyright law cannot apply to something that is “not a subject matter expressed or fixed anywhere,” he said.
Judge Mellor said that in order to prevent a default judgment from being entered against the defendants, Wright’s amended claim must remove references to copyright infringement in the Bitcoin file format. Mellor also denied Wright permission to appeal today’s decision; if Wright wishes, he would first need to obtain the court’s permission.
Wright has repeatedly claimed that he is the creator of Bitcoin and the mastermind behind the creation of Bitcoin under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.
Today’s case (IL-2022-000069) represents one of many attempts by Wright to control the Bitcoin landscape. It is different from another case (BL-2021-000313) in which Wright intends to sue various Bitcoin developers on similar grounds. On February 3, Judge Colin Birss of the London Court of Appeal allowed the latter case to be heard.
The latter case claims that the developer owes Wright a certain amount of Bitcoin — currently 111,000 BTC or $2.5 billion, with today’s ruling not mentioning any amount.