Crypto Patent Alliance Questions Craig Wright's White Paper Copyright Claim

Back in January, the notorious Craig Wright who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto had his lawyers send letters to a number of websites like bitcoin.org telling them to remove the Bitcoin white paper hosted on their web portals. On January 31, bitcoin.org’s owner Cobra claimed he was threatened by a Bitcoinsv supporter after the person discovered the anonymous owner’s phone number. Moreover, the organization Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) has sent a letter to Wright’s legal team seeking more information regarding the claims of copyright ownership.

Cobra Refuses to Stop Hosting the Bitcoin White Paper, Allegedly Receives a Threat from a Bitcoinsv Supporter

Not too long ago, Craig Wright’s lawyers stemming from the law firm Ontier LLP, have sent letters to various websites telling them to remove the Bitcoin white paper from the web portal. The claim was of course met with controversy and the owner of the website bitcoin.org refused to take down the paper.

On February 3, 2021, the owner of bitcoin.org who calls himself ‘Cobra’ said “today was the deadline for me to stop hosting the whitepaper, otherwise I would be sued. It’s still up.” Three days before the deadline, Cobra also said that he received a death threat from a bitcoinsv (BSV) supporter.

“I’ve received a death threat from someone associated with the BSV community,” Cobra tweeted. “This person somehow discovered one of my business numbers, called me up, and made clear they would ‘shoot me point-blank’ once they find my personal information.”

The Bitcoin white paper issue also saw a massive number of websites host the paper in spite of Wright’s legal efforts. Not only had companies joined the movement but Estonia’s e-residency website also hosts the white paper now and Jehudi Castro, an advisor to the Colombian President added the white paper to a Colombian government web page.

COPA Questions Wright’s Copyright Claim

Moreover, the Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA) organization has gotten involved as well.

COPA has sent a letter to the law firm Ontier LLP and said that the organization will need more evidence that bolsters Wright’s claims. There are a total of nine questions, which asks on what basis does the assertion that Wright is Nakamoto and the author of the paper stem from.

COPA asks for the exact dates of when Wright allegedly wrote the paper and where he was located at the time. The organization asks for information in regard to anyone that may have helped author the white paper and further asks if Ontier’s client held the copyright since authoring the paper.

The alliance is giving Wright and Ontier roughly two weeks to respond to the questions and letter. Following the COPA letter, Square Inc. CEO Jack Dorsey retweeted the letter and said “100%.” Cobra also retweeted COPA’s tweet and letter as well and Square Crypto tweeted “we don’t care who created bitcoin, just who didn’t.”

Wright’s Patent and Copyright Claims Are Not Well Received by the Crypto Community at Large

A number of digital asset fans, that support alternative crypto assets other than bitcoin, are not pleased with Wright’s most recent moves. Even Bitcoin Cash (BCH) supporters want nothing to do with the BSV ecosystem in general because of all the legal threats and copyright/patent trolling.

“I don’t use Bitcoin SV because I do not want my Bitcoin transaction fees to support certain litigious companies running that show by destroying other projects and public interest in the Bitcoin sphere and elsewhere in cryptocurrency via copyright [plus] patent trolling and worse,” the Twitter account dubbed @btcfork wrote.

“This is one of my strong concerns with BSV as well,” the blockchain developer Jonathan Silverblood wrote in response to @btcfork tweet. “As much as I feel that I am welcome by many of the community members, I still don’t feel welcome in that ecosystem as a whole,” Silverblood added.

This has been a common argument against the bitcoinsv (BSV) ecosystem and it doesn’t seem like the protocol’s supporters can move on without Wright’s leadership. Many BSV supporters (not all), wholeheartedly believe Wright truly is Satoshi Nakamoto, and have supported the copyright claims as well.