coindesk.com
The file format of bitcoin can’t be protected by copyright, a U.K. judge has found, ruling against self-proclaimed inventor of the cryptocurrency Craig Wright.
Wright, who says he wrote the 2008 bitcoin white paper under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakomoto, had sought to argue that he should be able to block the operation of bitcoin (BTC) and bitcoin cash (BCH) as they breach his intellectual property rights.
In a Tuesday ruling, Judge James Mellor said the file format of bitcoin – the sequence of a header and list of transactions that together form a block – can’t be treated like a literary work, because Wright can’t show how they were first recorded, a test known in copyright law as fixation.
“I do not see any prospect of the law as currently stated and understood in the caselaw allowing copyright protection of subject-matter which is not expressed or fixed anywhere,” Mellor said in a ruling for the High Court of England and Wales.
“It remains the case that no relevant 'work' has been identified containing content which defines the structure of the Bitcoin File Format,” though Wright and the two investment companies making the claim had been given “ample opportunity” to do so, Mellor added.
The claim was made against a host of defendants associated with Bitcoin, including several units of crypto exchange Coinbase. Wright said that the Bitcoin Satoshi Version (BSV) is the authentic form of the cryptocurrency.
Claims concerning copyright to the 2008 White Paper, and whether Wright is really the author, will be the subject of later rulings, the judge said.
Last week the U.K. Court of Appeal ruled that a claim by Wright's Tulip Trading against 16 Bitcoin developers should go to trial in London.
In a case heard in Oslo last year, multiple witnesses offered forensic evidence that documents supplied by Wright purporting to back up his claim to be Nakomoto contain discrepancies, such as fonts that weren’t available at the time.
Read more: Craig Wright’s Abnormal Psychology