Craig Wright, the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto has issued an ultimatum to two websites to take down ‘his’ Bitcoin whitepaper or face legal action. The legal threats issued to the popular websites Bitcoin.org and Bitcoincore.org come as the latest in a series of dramatic events initiated by the infamous crypto figure.
Bitcoin.org published an announcement on Jan. 21 that they had along with Bitcoincore.org been served with allegations of copyright infringements by the Australian computer scientist. Craig Wright, who has repeatedly claimed to be Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, threatened to take legal action against the websites if they did not take down the bitcoin whitepaper.
In their allegations sent to the two websites, Wright’s lawyers claim that he is the author of the Bitcoin whitepaper. They also stated that in his capacity as the Bitcoin inventor, the Australian was the legal copyright holder for the Bitcoin whitepaper in addition to owning the Bitcoin name and trademark and the two websites.
The owner of Bitcoin.org, a pseudonymous developer known as Cobra, was quick to rubbish the claims by issuing a strong rebuttal to Wright’s legal threats. Clearly, they were not intimidated by the allegations, saying they were false and that they would not pull down the Bitcoin whitepaper from their website.
The owner of the co-accused website Bitcoincore.org, appeared to be of a different opinion giving in to Wright’s intimidation, and took down the document. Cobra was clearly not impressed by their actions and he expressed his displeasure at the website’s administrators. The developer castigated them in the announcement with a part stating:
Unfortunately, without consulting us, Bitcoin Core developers scrambled to remove the Bitcoin whitepaper from bitcoincore.org, in response to these allegations of copyright infringement, lending credence to these false claims.
According to Cobra, the Bitcoincore.org removed the whitepaper from their website in less than two hours of receiving notice of Wright’s allegations. The developer hit out at them saying that their actions gave credence to the false claims.
By surrendering in this way, the Bitcoin Core project has lent ammunition to Bitcoin’s enemies, engaged in self-censorship, and compromised its integrity. This surrender will no doubt be weaponized to make new false claims, like that the Bitcoin Core developers ‘know’ CSW to be Satoshi Nakamoto and this is why they acted in this way.
However, Wladimir J. van der Laan, the owner of Bitcoincore.org was quick to defend their actions stating via this tweet that he was unwilling to sacrifice himself for such a cause.
https://twitter.com/orionwl/status/1352181235766988800?s=20
Van der Laan further reiterated his focus on Bitcoin itself saying that he was happy to maintain the bitcoin core code rather than engage in a personal macho posturing duel with Craig Wright. The Australian is renowned for filing multiple lawsuits against different people in the crypto space over the past few years. Given that Wright has not won any of these suits, it would be fair enough to dismiss this recent allegation as an attention-seeking stunt by this individual desperate to gain recognition as Bitcoin’s inventor.
Image courtesy of pixabay
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