Not the Wright stuff: Bitcoin 'inventor' loses bid to sue YouTuber who called him a liar
- Reference: 1591016045
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/06/01/craig_wright_loses_bitcoin_founder_lawsuit_roger_ver/
- Source link:
Craig Wright, an Australian-born computer scientist and citizen of Antigua & Barbuda who lives in Surrey, in southeast England, lost a legal bid to sue one Roger Ver.
The UK's Court of Appeal ruled late last week that Wright cannot sue Ver because England & Wales is not "the most appropriate place" for the suit, upholding an earlier High Court finding that audiences on Twitter and YouTube for the vid were mainly in the US.
Ver, a Bitcoin speculator and maker of YouTube videos about it, published one on 15 April 2019 which said Wright "had fraudulently claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, that is to say the person, or one of the group of people, who developed Bitcoin," as the court put it.
Back when the wider world cared about such things, the identity of Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator, "Satoshi Nakamoto", was a hot topic. Wright seized the moment and [1]told the BBC and Wired magazine that it was he. Others in the cryptocurrency community decided this was bollocks and so was born an ongoing soap opera-style tale of "he said, she said".
Once upon a time Wright and Ver were "trusted colleagues" of each other, the court heard. This ceased to be the case in November 2018 when the two came up with different visions for the future of Bitcoin. One was called Bitcoin ABC and the other Bitcoin SV. The difference between these was apparently so vast that Wright told Ver the latter was now his "enemy."
Upset by Ver's April 2019 YouTube video calling him a liar and fraud who posed as Bitcoin's real creator, Wright sued for libel. He hired a process server who caught Ver on a business trip to London and also a top barrister, Adam Wolanski QC. Ver struck back with Hugh Tomlinson QC; neither side was short of cash, it would seem.
Nonetheless, after a year of legal wrangling, Lord Justices Dingemans, Flaux and Popplewell threw out Wright's case. Lead judge Lord Justice Dingemans wrote:
...the evidence shows that there were about four times as many publications of the YouTube channel and tweets in the US as there were in the UK. This reflects Mr Ver's evidence to the effect that the reach of the YouTube Channel and Twitter account was centred on the United States. This evidence strongly suggests that a state in the US is likely to be the most appropriate jurisdiction in which to bring the claim.
Yesterday Ver published a [2]YouTube video celebrating his victory and inviting Wright to pay him off in Bitcoin Cash.
Cautiously tiptoeing around the central thrust of the case, Lord Justice Dingemans also wrote in [3]the judgment : "I should make it clear that this judgment does not address whether Dr Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto. This is because it was not an issue on the appeal." Presumably the learned Court of Appeal beak had taken a quick look at YouTube videos about Bitcoin and realised what a giant morass he would have stepped into.
Wright was previously [4]ordered by an American court to hand over $5bn in bits and bytes to the estate of a former business partner and fellow Bitcoin speculator.
Some have said he is also [5]the inventor of the inventor of Bitcoin . ®
Bootnote
The author of this article has absolutely no interest in Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies. None whatsoever. There is absolutely no need to email him offering him free "currency", entry to pyramid schemes, or indeed anything else at all related to any cryptocurrency, blockchain or similar. This advice applies in particular to PR agencies, marketers and those dodgy people who try to score SEO backlinks through desperate and shady means.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2016/05/05/bitcoin_craig_wright/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyLi1fF28WU
[3] https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2020/672.html
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2019/08/28/bitcoin_craig_wright/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2016/05/03/bitcoin_craig_wright/
Re: Libel tourism
"So Wright tried libel tourism"
Is that what suing someone in your own country is called now?
Re: Libel tourism
Ver is a US citizen. Wright was born in Australia and is a citizen of Antigua and Barbados. He happens to be living in Surrey now, but the judges accepted the argument that this was incidental to where the alleged defamation actually took place.
Bootnote
The best part of this article is the bootnote - I am tempted to start appending it to all text I write on the internet.
OK, I might be forgetting my recent history here. But I was under the impression that, in the UK, if even a small number of people in the UK viewed a website/video/whatever, it was considered to be 'published' in the UK for the purposes of libel. Maybe there's something different about this particular case, or maybe I'm remembering wrongly.
Now you mention it, I do recall something along those lines. It was (ab)used by people to sue in the UK as we have/had better/worse libel laws than America.
Yes and it was widely viewed to be bring the UK courts into the same sort of disrepute as East-Texas patent courts.
Barristers liked it, as did Bentley dealers in central London, but judges really don't like their courts being used by money-grubbing foreigners.
Judges names
UK judges always seem to have fantastic names.
Dingemans, Flaux & Popplewell. A law practice in an unpublished Harry Potter story perhaps?
Re: Judges names
Are you aware of this outfit?:-
https://punch.photoshelter.com/image/I00007zrWjyPn1lQ
(Cartoonist:- Tony Husband)
Re: Judges names
Dingemans, Flaux & Popplewell.
I'd say prior art by Dickens.
Re: Judges names
Cicely Popplewell was one of the world's first software engineers. The Popplewell family actually has produced a remarkable number of rather brilliant people.
Brave
Has anyone else running the Brave browser noticed that the vast majority of paid adverts are for cryptocurrencies? I've found that my cynical mistrust is spilling over to the browser as well, with the result that I'm using Firefox far more these days.
Re: Brave
Had to look it up.
It blocks ads and website trackers, and provides a way for users to send cryptocurrency contributions...
The start sounded good....
"neither side was short of a few shekels"
Is that really a phrase you want to use?
Re: "neither side was short of a few shekels"
Seems it wasn't, it's been changed to 'short of cash' now.
Re: "neither side was short of a few shekels"
Perhaps hoping they would spare one for an ex-leper
Libel tourism
Getting a libel judgment in the US, especially for a non-US citizen, is next to impossible (whoever told Vernon Unsworth to go ahead?). So Wright tried libel tourism and now found that doesn't work any more. All in all, progress.