Self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator Craig Wright has hinted at a possible legal battle against Apple over the storage of Bitcoin white paper on its computers, claiming it violates copyright laws.
In response to a Twitter user who asked if Apple might be “in breach of copyright” for storing the Bitcoin white paper on its computers, the Australian computer scientist said: “Yes.”
Wright has long claimed that he is the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.
The computer scientist has also argued that his intellectual property rights have been infringed upon by Bitcoin spin-offs derived from the cryptocurrency since he created the original blockchain.
He has also filed numerous lawsuits over this matter.
Back in 2021, Wright filed a lawsuit against the Bitcoin.org website to have its copy of the Bitcoin white paper removed from the website, claiming that it violates copyright laws.
At the time, he won a default judgment against Cobra, the operator of the Bitcoin.org website on a technicality, as Cobra refused to testify under his real name or provide pseudonymity-compromising oral testimony at a British court hearing.
However, a recent ruling by a U.K. judge went against Wright’s claims, stating that copyright law cannot be applied to something whose subject matter is not expressed or fixed anywhere.
The cryptocurrency community has long been skeptical of Wright’s claims to be the creator of Bitcoin, and he has faced legal challenges over his claims in the past.
In 2022, he sued cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Kraken over their misrepresentation of “Bitcoin Core” as the actual Bitcoin. Wright has argued that the real BTC is his Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV).
Additionally, Wright has sued 15 developers to obtain 111,000 BTC worth $2.5 billion. Judge Colin Birss in London’s Court of Appeals has allowed this case to be trialed.
Bitcoin White Paper Stored in Apple’s Modern macOS
This week, the news broke that the Bitcoin white paper has been stored within every modern version of the operating system for Apple’s Mac computers.
According to an April 5 blog post from technologist Andy Baio, a PDF of the Bitcoin white paper has “apparently shipped with every copy of macOS since Mojave in 2018.”
Anyone can find a copy of Bitcoin’s foundational text on MacOS operating systems using a simple command in the Terminal.
Notably, Apple has a history of hiding files on its products for users to uncover.
For instance, the game “Monty Python’s Complete Waste of Time” was once hidden on Apple’s first CD-ROM, and the tech giant remained secretive about the fact even after it was discovered.
The Bitcoin white paper was published in 2008 by a person or group of people using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.
While the identity of the author(s) remains a mystery, the document has been republished numerous times and is widely considered a seminal piece of work in the history of cryptocurrencies.
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