Thanks pooya87, I'll have to quote it in case anyone else is looking for similar information.
Hey guys,
As judgement has now been entered against me for "copyright infringement", I'll soon receive a UK court order to stop broadcasting the Bitcoin whitepaper to the UK. The court order will be published on the usual UK judgements site (
https://www.bailii.org/). I've been shown a draft, and the heading of the order reads:
IF ANY INDIVIDUAL WHO IS A DEFENDANT DISOBEYS THIS ORDER THAT INDIVIDUAL
MAY BE HELD TO BE IN CONTEMPT OF COURT AND MAY BE PUNISHED BY A FINE,
IMPRISONMENT, CONFISCATION OF ASSETS OR OTHER PUNISHMENT UNDER THE LAW
IF ANY A COMPANY OR OTHER ORGANISATION WHICH IS A DEFENDANT DISOBEYS
THIS ORDER THAT COMPANY OR ORGANISATION MAY BE HELD TO BE IN CONTEMPT
OF COURT AND MAY BE PUNISHED BY A FINE, CONFISCATION OF ASSETS OR OTHER
PUNISHMENT UNDER THE LAW. ANY DIRECTOR OR OFFICER OF THAT COMPANY OR
ORGANISATION MAY ALSO BE PUNISHED BY A FINE, IMPRISONMENT, CONFISCATION
OF ASSETS OR OTHER PUNISHMENT UNDER THE LAW
Obviously, Bitcoin.org has to follow the laws of the land in the jurisdictions it serves. The UK makes up a noticeable amount of our traffic, and the UK ISPs will block us if we don't comply. Undoing such a block would come at great expense and would take some time, as all things legal tend to do. On balance of "how can we maximize the good we do?" I think complying with the order and continuing to serve UK visitors other valuable Bitcoin educational material is important. The Bitcoin whitepaper doesn't get tons of traffic each day (there's obviously some days with lots of traffic like a prominent person tweets out the link to it), and even then, this order is only limited to just UK visitors.
Also, I don't want anyone associated with the company behind Bitcoin.org, if ever identified, and if even temporarily in the UK, to be at risk of potentially 2 years in jail. Indeed, as one judge in relevant UK case law put it:
"In circumstances where directors of the defendants may wish to come to this country on business or for pleasure, the prospect that their next visit may be for a more extended duration and in less comfortable accommodation than anticipated should provide a real incentive to comply with an order."
It goes without saying that I don't want to put myself and others at risk of some serious time in a UK jail.
Shortly after I receive the order the following changes will be made to the website:
The Bitcoin whitepaper located at
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf won't be accessible to UK based visitors.
All derived works of the Bitcoin whitepaper such as translations located here:
https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-paper will not be accessible to UK based visitors.
The court requires that we publish information about the infringement, to deter future infringers (there's very specific provisions of the wording and where to place this notice), for a 6 month period. UK based visitors will see a small banner near the top of the site, with a short sentence about the the case, that default judgement was entered, and that Wright was the winner. It's more like a short summary of what happened, and not really a promotion of Wright. The judge was particular to add the wording of "default judgement", and also "the claim was undefended".
I believe at some point the COPA case will prove Wright perjured himself in obtaining this judgement and order. Hopefully in the next few years he'll be brought to justice. We live in a stupid world where people can get locked away for years for relatively minor offences like drug possession, however people like Wright can just continue on abusing the courts with no real consequences. It sucks that me, hodlonaut, McCormack, and various Bitcoin developers have to deal with this nonsense, but truth will prevail in the end and liars like him can never succeed in trying to stop Bitcoin's success no matter how hard they try.
