Topic: Bitcoin's code copyright relevant question. (Read 952 times)

I disagree with your reasoning and it seems to contradict legal theory, but I admit I do not know your laws.
I personally don't know your laws, but below is my understanding and would be my reasoning.

My additions are in bold and my deletions are striked out.

The Bitcoin System (which includes all aspects and results of the code or protocol being enacted Ledger, code, Blockchain call it what you want) is the work, the creation of an purposefully unknown author, and given an MIT License for all to use without claims or rights of ownerships and still used does not matter whether updated or not, because the other authors (Developers) have the same rights to use (add to, subtract, etc) as the first one granted from that original MIT License as long as it continues free use after every version and marked so. Thus, As such it shall not be protected under the Copyright laws even from the original author at any time, due to that original free release which now is public record and common knowledge, which in turn, voids any rights to any form of ownerships. The bitcoin as a medium of exchange, should be considered the same as the protocol something else for these two reasons: 1. bitcoin (the medium) is its the purpose and intent of the created by code and therefore is the code, and is not a separate part, but is the code's full manifestation, and not an unintended byproductit does not have a direct author. 2. the creator/author is unknown and uncredited for a purpose which enforces the intention of non-ownability or copyright claims. The author purposefully released the system as open source free for all to use with an MIT License and as such, the bitcoins created and distributed through this code has there is no direct author it is not innovative and subsequently can not have the same legal protection as the Bitcoin System. The creator never intended for bitcoins, the medium, to be legally or technically separate from the code. In fact, bitcoins only exist within the confines of the Bitcoin code and if you take those bitcoins out from the Bitcoin code, they are no longer bitcoins, and become a different coin entirely or are just outright destroyed. Technically, bitcoins do not actually exist anywhere, except within the Bitcoin blockchain. Thus, bitcoins & Bitcoin are actually a single entity and that entity is protected under the original free use from Late 2008 / Early 2009.


The above paragraph should not be considered a legal opinion, but only my personal opinion on this issue.
If you are going to present or perform an action based upon the comments in this thread, you should be aware
that you should received a full and proper legal opinion from a licensed counsel within the jurisdiction that this applies.

Thanks everyone for a great answers. I will just promptly reply before going deeper for the sole reason I ended up in Italy and I am having sort of internet shortage.

As far as I understand copyright laws from the international BERN, WIPO and EUROPEAN 2009/24/ES view. I believe its like this. The Bitcoin (Ledger, code, Blockchain call it what you want) is the work, the creation of an author, never licensed and still used does not matter whether updated or not, because the other authors has the same rights as the first one. As such it shall be protected under the Copyright laws. The bitcoin as a medium of exchange, should be considered something else for this two reasons: 1. its created by code and therefore it does not have a direct author. 2. as there is no direct author it is not innovative and subsequently can not have the same legal protection as the Bitcoin.


Once again thanks for the answers I will do a better reply tomorrow.

There is an issue that needs clarification for the thought experiment:
Within the first step, when you build the MP3 data file (which is a music file),
with the open source MP3 creator, did you use open source sounds/tones/loops/etc
or did you play your own instruments, uploaded them into your computer, edited
them, and then added them into the open source MP3 creator program?

The issue I'm getting at is that for you to copyright something, there needs to be a piece
that only you could have done. You can not copyright work that was created all throughout
open source material. You would need to have personally made the tones or played the
instruments to "own" the song in the MP3.

The question is, which I don't know, what are the "decisions that are made, and those decisions
lead to a unique and original creation" in Bitcoin transactions or block making?

There needs to be some sort of outside element that is the basis for the copyright and that
element needs to be something more significant than something like a "salt" added, IMO.

Your response has no basis in reality.  You are simply inventing your own beliefs about how you want things to work and then stating those imaginary beliefs as if they were facts.

Copyright is a legal right that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights for its use and distribution.  If I write a an original book, since I am the creator I have a copyright claim on that book, even though I and my book are independent of the government.  In my jurisdiction if anyone else attempts to use or distribute my book, I can use the law and courts to stop them and to receive compensation from them. I do not need a license from the government to create a book, and I only need to prove that the book was my original work and that the defendant didn't create the book themselves to defend my copyright.

In most jurisdictions in the world (and definitely in the U.S.) you ARE legally required to pay tax on any income that you gain from buying, selling, receiving, or spending bitcoins.




When it comes to matters of law "doubts", "assumptions", "expectations", and "beliefs" are generally a really bad way to determine the legality of an action. When a new technology comes along that doesn't have many laws specifically written with that technology in mind, the courts are forced to try and use existing laws that don't take into consideration the details of the new technology to make decisions about the "legality" of some use of that technology.  Some jurisdictions will adhere very strongly to the "letter of the law" (specifically exactly what it says), while others may be more willing to take into consideration the "spirit of the law" (what the writers of the law were probably trying to accomplish).

There are MANY cases where something that seems "unreasonable" was decided because the law was written in such a way that the court felt that they could (or had to) make the decision.

A lawyer that is very familiar with both the technical aspects of bitcoin as well as the history of related decisions courst have made might be able to give a solid opinion about what courts are likely to say, but for the average person that isn't familiar with a significant history of cases and the specifics of the outcomes to state an opinion isn't much more than wishful thinking.

I'd personally be VERY surprised if a court tried to enforce a copyright claim by someone on a transaction or block that they created, but I've been surprised by court decisions in the past.


Not exactly.  There is more to a transaction or a block than a simple random number.  There are decisions that are made, and those decisions lead to a unique and original creation by the creator.

Here's a thought experiment for you:

• I use an open source and public domain MP3 creator to build a data file.
• That file can be played by an open source and public domain MP3 player.
• The result of playing that MP3 data file with that open source and public domain MP3 player is a pleasant unique sequence of notes, and chords that I created.

Forgetting for a moment any personal opinion you may have on whether or how copyright should be enforced enforced, and instead thinking only about how courts currently actually DO enforce copyright...

Do I have a copyright claim on that MP3 file?

If I share that MP3 file with a few close friends and/or family members (peers), do I automatically lose my copyright claim?

The question is in the wrong path. I mean how can bitcoin have a copywright when it is independent of the government. It is a cryptocurrency that is uncontrolled by any policy made by the government like the banking institutions. A music record is under the rule of law it pays taxes and must be registered with the specific agency to get a patent. While bitcoins does not need any legitimacy, you can own bitcoin without getting a license from the government. You are not entitled to pay tax when you own a bitcoin. But maybe in the future your question will be relevant since government in the future will have a hold on bitcoin.

I agree. Ultimately, if someone created "unique data" but it was never broadcasted,
that does not grant the creator ownership rights when the original system granted those rights to be free for all.

I do not believe anything that resulted from the Bitcoin system, could be copyrightable ever.
In a way, that is like saying a certain number of digits random number, from a open source random number generator,
could be copyrighted since that number would be a type of unique data that resulted from the software.

I would assume that something similar as "Expectation of privacy" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expectation_of_privacy) comes into play. The whole intent of the software is to produce and maintain this public ledger. Trying to lay claim on a specific transaction or block is a ridiculous thing to do and I expect any reasonable to throw that case out immediately together with whoever brought it.

As a thought experiment I cannot come up with any scenario where a court ruling that there is a copyright on such a block would be in any way enforceable. I think that once a block is out there the only way it could be "removed" without breaking the protocol is by orphaning it. If anyone starts a legal case and wins, orphaning would be practically impossible (because it would be prohibitively expensive to orphan a long chain). The only way to "comply" with such a ruling would be to break protocol with (presumably) a hard fork. I don't see how a court would force anyone outside its jurisdiction to go along with that. The only way would be to ban Bitcoin (and the like) outright?

If you voluntarily choose to broadcast your unique set of data on the open source network, knowing that it'll become part of the public ledger, then, whether or not it's something that can be copyrighted is pretty irrelevant, as no one is breaching your copyrights (you're the one who chose to make it public).

But I have serious doubt whether such data, despite being unique, is something that could be copyrighted, especially when it's strictly related to, derived from and only usable as part of an open source code/software. That's definitely not what IP protection is for.

That's really an interesting legal question that I hadn't thought about before. I suppose that the "letter of the law" technical answer may depend on the jurisdiction where you ask it.  I would hope that the "spirit of the law" would result in none of this data being protected by copyright, but without testing it out in courts in multiple jurisdictions there may not be a way to know for sure.  Perhaps an technology lawyer of some sort will stop in here and give us a good explanation about how they believe their particular jurisdiction would handle it.

The issue here is are the transactions that a user creates and the blocks that a miner (or pool) creates.

A user uses software to create a unique set of data that nobody else has the ability to create.  They then share that unique data that is of their own creation with the peers that they are connected to via the Bitcoin Protocol.

A miner (or pool) chooses a set of transactions, an order for those transactions, and a nonce value.  This combination of ordered transactions and nonce is a unique creation of the miner (or pool).  They then share that unique block of data that is of their own creation with the peers that they are connected to via the Bitcoin protocol.

The interesting legal questions are...

Does the act of broadcasting a unique transaction created by an individual result in forfeiture of any copyright claim that individual might otherwise have had on the creation of that transaction data?

Does the act of broadcasting the block of data that a miner (or pool) created result in forfeiture of any copyright claim that the miner (or pool) might otherwise have had on that block of data?

If the broadcast of the transaction or block results in the data legally becoming a part of the public domain, then the answer to your question is that all of the data that is copied, shared, and created is not protected by copyright.

If the broadcast of the transaction or block does not legally result in the loss of copyright claim on that data, then bitcoin may have a bit of a problem?

Satoshi Nakamoto released the first version of Bitcoin under the MIT License.
Because of that, all software created that uses any of that code, is automatically opensource.

Today, Bitcoin's updated and evolved code is still under that original MIT License and also this
license notice found on the Bitcoin Core Github: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/COPYING

The bitcoin that Satoshi created, IMO, is the same as the bitcoin circulating today.
For example, if all bitcoins mined in 2009 are still movable and allowable by today's version of the code,
then the bitcoins as a medium of exchange is still the same. If later we need to exchange all those coins
for new coins (like a proof of burn) then I would then say that the bitcoins of the past are not the bitcoins of today.
(Though under certain circumstances, it could still be argued to be the same License.)

For example, Litecoin was a fork of Bitcoin, with the Satoshi license. In theory, since Satoshi released
Bitcoin as opensource and since Litecoin forked that code, Litecoin is now opensource, but no one would
argue that litecoins of today are the same medium of exchange of the bitcoins of the past. That is a new medium.

IMO, the issues is whether the new Bitcoin code of today, allows for the past bitcoins to still be valid in the present.
I think that it does, and as such, the bitcoins of the past are still the same bitcoins of today, even if the original code
has evolved and been added to.

Satoshi is a nickname, and nicknames don't have right about properties and copyrights. This only might be an issue if or when Satoshi reveals his identity.

And as far I know the code is under MIT's license since the beginning, so he can't change his mind and decide to take down Bitcoin even if he wanted

Well a large percentage of his original code has changed over the years, but the core principles still stay the same. If you are saying the Blockchain is a result of the code that was produced, then a

printed report on Microsoft Word, should fall under the same thinking. It was created by a Copy righted program, but the work resulting from that are not copy righted. In any way, nobody filed a

patent or intellectual  copyright for the first code, so it serves no purpose to worry about that. I hope I understood it correctly.. ? 

Well honestly I just need it for a sort of project I am working on, and I was looking for a fresh mind to give me an opinion. If everything goes right I might tell you the relevance in about two months. Yet you are quite right it most probably changes nothing.

I'm no expert, but I'd say that "copy" is just a general term used for any digital, intangible goods, it's pretty irrelevant what the "original" is, if such exist at all. Imagine Satoshi writes the code, saves it, then copies it to another folder and deletes the previous file. Has he just deleted the original? It doesn't matter, it's not even possible to say whether or not certain file is original or has it been copied.

And even if we assumed that the entire Bitcoin network is the "original" and therefore not subject to MIT licence, it changes nothing, it would have just been unlicenced, with no restriction of use.

Nono. Bitcoin is licensed under the MIT license, that is to help others developers so they wont have a legal problems, also because someone could usurp it for himself saying he is the author and create non-open source license. The rest of what you say is practically correct. The thing i am searching for is whether the bitcoin as a medium of exchange is part of the original work or not.

I kinda am. The blockchain is the original work, what you write in word is yours, 'cause you are the author. The problem here is that Nakamoto is the author of the code and also of the blockchain its SUBSEQUENT use is licensed, no problem. But the use of the very first work, which is still running? that is not right?


I have sort of the same opinion, what I am looking for is pretty much unequivocal consent or a disagreement.

In simple words bitcoin is not licensed and does not need a license. It has anonymous features and it is not under the governments regulations. It operates without the government and exists Not for the government. It is therefore does not need a patent or a copyright or any licenses sice it operates outside the umbrella of the government.

Nakamotos' CODE is what's licensed.

The blockchain is the output of that code.

I don't imagine that there is any license attached to that, just as Microsoft doesn't control the license of the document you write in Word.

I'm not a lawyer, however, but that's what I think at least...

Is that what you're looking for?

Thanks for the answer but the question here is different.

I will start with an example when you buy a song via Itunes, you bought a copy of that song, which is sold under whatever license right? With bitcoin its different, the MIT license says that you might use COPY of the bitcoin software in all the way - opensoftware. But what I want to know is whether the bitcoin is the money, coins, medium of exchange, is the COPY of Nakamoto's original work or whether it's the original itself. Every Bitcoin is unique and can not be copied as the network would not accept it. It is even possible to say that all of the bitcoins already exists. does it mean we use the very first, yet updated program of satoshis, which integral part is the 21 million of bitcoins?

The copy of the program are some altcoins that took the code. The copy of the program is probably something we use to enter the network. But the network itself is it a copy?

OP I think I don't quite get you, but ill answer you based on what I understand. In my own understanding, in copying bitcoin's program, one must give credits to satoshi of course for using his/her/their work. Well I think no one needs a license to use it since it is open source and I think it is made open source for altcoins to be made.