Published
4 years ago on
May 22, 2019
The self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, Craig Wright has filed copyright registrations for the Bitcoin whitepaper and the original Bitcoin code with the US Copyright Office. The office has seen Wright as an author, making it the first government agency to do so.
Wright = Satoshi?
The crypto industry, like most industries, isn’t one that can escape controversy and Craig Wright is no exception. Wright saw his claims to the crypto throne (not the iron throne though) culminate this week after he was granted copyright claims to the original Bitcoin whitepaper and software code.
According to the official website of the US Copyright Office, Wright’s claim has been registered on 20th May. the Copyright Office granted Wright two copyrights, one for the whitepaper called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” and the other for “Bitcoin”, as in the original code for the cryptocurrency.
CoinGeek has reported:
“Wright is now legally establishing that he is Bitcoin’s creator after being dismayed to see his original Bitcoin design bastardized by protocol developer groups—first by Bitcoin Core (BTC) in 2017 and then again by Bitcoin Cash (BCH) developers in 2018.”
The registration recognises that Wright is an author of the whitepaper under the name Satoshi Nakamoto, as well as being responsible for writing “most of version 0.1 of the Bitcoin client software.”
The president of nChain, Jimmy Nguyen recognised the whitepaper and has said:
“Better than anyone else, Craig understands that Bitcoin was created be a massively scaled blockchain to power the world’s electronic cash for billions of people to use, and be the global data ledger for the biggest enterprise applications.”
CoinCenter’s Neeraj Agrawal was the first to break the news, posting this on Twitter:
Craig Wright filed a copyright registration for the Bitcoin whitepaper https://t.co/aIvg2BbmL2 pic.twitter.com/TVdU62TRRv
— Neeraj K. Agrawal (@NeerajKA) May 21, 2019
If Wright’s claim is found to be false though, it wouldn’t have a big consequence as no company has ever been procescuted for false copyright registration before, which is technically punishable by a fine of up to $2,500. Just like the venture capital lawyer Chris Harvey points out:
“False copyright registration is "copyfraud". Unfortunately, no private right of action exists under relevant US copyright law, 18 U.S.C. § 506(e). Violations are punishable by a fine of up to $2,500. No company has ever been prosecuted for violating this.”
