Bitcoin.org website brings back Bitcoin white paper

Following Craig Wright’s unsuccessful court case to prove his identity as Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, the Bitcoin white paper has been reuploaded to the Bitcoin.org website. Hennadii Stepanov, the maintainer of the website, made the announcement by sharing a link to the white paper PDF on platform X. Due to legal restrictions, access to the white paper was previously restricted for UK-based users, with a quote from Nakamoto displayed instead. In 2021, Wright won a copyright infringement case against Cobra, the anonymous group behind the website, resulting in the removal of the white paper PDF and Cobra paying Wright’s legal fees. Wright also filed for US copyright registration in 2019. In 2023, Wright sued 13 Bitcoin Core developers and several companies for copyright violations related to the white paper and the Bitcoin blockchain. The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund responded, highlighting the negative impact of such lawsuits on Bitcoin development. However, Wright’s copyright claim lost its validity after his claims of being Nakamoto were debunked. The ruling came in a case brought against Wright by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance, accusing him of forgery and deceit. Wright’s assets were frozen by a UK court to prevent him from evading court expenses. The Bitcoin white paper is now subject to an MIT open-source license, allowing its code to be reused and modified.