Earlier thread:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/so-you-want-to-get-sued-by-a-scammer-5311388Craig Wright is increasing the intensity of his campaign of harassment.
He recently filed a lawsuit against several former and current Bitcoin developers, including myself. In that case he is attempting to steal 111k BTC which clearly doesn't belong to him-- he claims he was "hacked" but that he has erased his computers to be sure there was no malware, not only does the hack appear fake but the coins were never his to begin with. He is demanding developers distribute effectively backdoored copies of Bitcoin node software -- of course, that wouldn't work even if they developers tried because people wouldn't run them. Failing a recovery via backdoor, he is demanding over $6 billion USD in damages.
He also filed a copyright lawsuit against Cobra for bitcoin.org hosting the Bitcoin whitepaper. Satoshi himself put the whitepaper on Bitcoin.org back at Bitcoin's beginning. Unfortunately, Cobra found it to be procedurally impossible to obtain representation and present a formal defense while preserving his pseudonymity.
Cobra's identity is irrelevant to the case-- the case depends purely on Wright's obviously false copyright claims and the fact that even if his claims were legitimate his complaint would be blocked by the fact that the author put the file there himself and took no action for over a decade. But
Wright intends to use Cobra's identity to harm him, so Wright is using the case as a pretext to
obtain that identity. This is an indication of what Wright would do to Satoshi if Satoshi were around.
There is an ongoing litigation in COPA v. Wright (IL-2021-00019) over the same subject matter-- the copyright of the Bitcoin Whitepaper-- where another party Wright threatened has filed a lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgement as to the falsehood of Wright's claims. Because Cobra was unable to obtain representation while protecting his privacy, Cobra threw himself on the mercy of the court presenting four pages for argument and hoping for a stay of his default judgement pending the result of this actively litigated case.
The court was unwilling or procedurally unable to provide that mercy. The court issued a default judgement in Wright's favor, ordering cobra to remove access to the whitepaper for people in the UK and post a message claiming that the site had violated Wright's copyright. Given that Cobra is, apparently, not subject to UK jurisdiction the court will presumably have a difficult time enforcing its ruling.
Satoshi Nakamoto authored the Bitcoin Whitepaper with the intention that it be shared widely, and Craig Wright’s takedown notices and litigation are fraudulent, but since he is a litigious jerk who has
bankrupted people with his fraudulent legal claims in court, it is sometimes a wise strategic choice to avoid provoking him into suing, which is expensive and disruptive to a defendant even when they ultimately win, or a wise choice to keep him from obtaining your identity.
But you might be in a good position to host this paper that Craig Wright so desperately wants taken down and kept under his exclusive control. If you are, you probably also would like to host a mirror of some Bitcoin Node source code-- since Wright will come after that next and node software is more important than the whitepaper. E.g.
https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.21.1/bitcoin-0.21.1.tar.gz or
https://github.com/btcsuite/btcd/releases/download/v0.22.0-beta/btcd-source-v0.22.0-beta.tar.gz or whatever other node software you like. Wright has also been claiming that some people hosting the white paper are in support of him and his Bitcoin scam-version clone, hosting the code for a node implementation will deny him that excuse.
After hosting it-- You might want to give notice to his attorneys, just to let them know. Below is an example notice you can send to his attorneys (make sure to fill out the two [ADDRESS] blocks).
Warning: sending this makes you considerably more likely to become the target of a lawsuit by Craig Wright. You should think about whether you are prepared to be in that position before sending this letter.
(This is absolutely, positively, not legal advice, and you are strongly encouraged to consult with your own attorney, especially if you are in the UK.)
To: Simon Cohen <
[email protected]>
Cc: Paul Ferguson <
[email protected]>
Mr. Cohen,
I have recently become aware that the firm of Ontier LLP has been sending notices on behalf of Craig S. Wright to parties hosting “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” (the “Bitcoin Whitepaper”), alleging that Mr. Wright is the rightful copyright holder of the Bitcoin Whitepaper and that further distribution is an infringement of Wright’s exclusive rights.
I believe this to be a fraudulent misrepresentation of both the authorship of the paper and of its licensing status for many reasons, including but not limited to the following subset of points:
• The Bitcoin Whitepaper was released, along with the initial public version of the software, under the MIT license. This license is a perpetual grant to the general public of the right to “use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies” of the software and associated documentation files (including the Bitcoin Whitepaper) and may not be revoked or rescinded, even by the true author.
• The Bitcoin Whitepaper was authored by a person or entity writing under the name Satoshi Nakamoto, and any exclusive rights under copyright are held by that person or entity (or their assignees). There is no evidence that Wright is that person; in fact, despite challenges in courts of law and mass media journalism, Wright has been either unable to provide proof, unwilling to produce proof, or produced documentary support in the form of forgeries. Any reasonable observer would conclude from this that Wright is unable to claim this connection through legitimate means, and is not Satoshi Nakamoto.
• Wright has attempted to defraud the courts for his own personal advantage on previous occasions. For one example, he perjured himself in an earlier legal proceeding, which was exposed by the true owners of $200M+ in bitcoins he claimed to own producing unforgeable digital signatures stating that Wright was a fraud. In more recent actions Wright admits to not having a large amount of Bitcoin but instead attempts to force Bitcoin developers to effectively steal Bitcoin for him, were his claims true he would have no need for these supposedly lost coins. His claims cannot simply be taken at face value, even when made through counsel.
It is therefore my good faith belief that I have valid license to distribute copies of the Bitcoin Whitepaper and that Wright’s claims do not have any bearing on that right. Upon that belief, I am hosting a copy at [ADDRESS] along with the code for a Bitcoin node implementation at [CODE ADDRESS].
I am providing notice to your firm so that any credible claims to the contrary may be addressed in a timely fashion to avoid running out the clock on equitable defenses.
Best,
[NAME]
