Key Facts
- •Dr. Craig Wright claims to be the creator of the Bitcoin system and the author of the Bitcoin White Paper.
- •This case concerns an application for permission to serve a claim outside the jurisdiction.
- •The claim includes allegations of copyright infringement in the Bitcoin File Format.
- •The central issue is whether copyright subsists in the Bitcoin File Format's structure.
- •The court considered the concept of 'fixation' as required for copyright subsistence under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and relevant case law.
- •The Bitcoin File Format is described as a structured data format within Bitcoin blocks.
Legal Principles
Copyright subsists in a literary work only if and until it is recorded in writing or otherwise (fixation).
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, Section 3(2)
For copyright to subsist, the subject matter must be original and expressed in a manner that makes it identifiable with sufficient precision and objectivity.
Case C-310/17 Levola Hengelo BV v Smilde Foods BV
Functionality of a computer program, programming language, and data file format are not forms of expression protected by copyright under the Software Directive.
Case C-406/10 SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd
A data file format may be protected by copyright if it contains content, not just structure.
[Technomed Ltd v Bluecrest Health Screening Ltd and Software Solutions Ltd v 365 Health and Wellbeing Ltd]
Outcomes
Permission to serve the claim outside the jurisdiction was granted, except for the copyright claim relating to the Bitcoin File Format.
The court found no serious issue to be tried regarding copyright subsistence in the Bitcoin File Format because the structure was not fixed in a material form within the Bitcoin blocks. The structure is implied by the software, not explicitly defined within the block data.
Permission to appeal was refused.
The court's decision was based on its finding that there was no serious issue to be tried regarding the copyright claim, not on a novel point of law.