Dr Craig Steven Wright & Ors v BTC Core & Ors

Copyright in a file format requires an identifiable work expressed or fixed in material form. The fact that software reads and writes data according to a structure does not, without more, fix that structure as a copyright work. A fixation is distinct from the work, and identifying a fixation is necessary but not sufficient for copyright subsistence. Intellectual creation alone does not establish a work. Where the alleged format contains only structure, with no content defining that structure, there is no serious issue to be tried as to copyright subsistence.

The claimants alleged copyright in the Bitcoin File Format and sought permission to serve proceedings out of the jurisdiction. The court had already concluded that the database-right claims and copyright claim concerning the White Paper raised serious issues to be tried. The remaining issue was whether the copyright claim concerning the Bitcoin File Format met that threshold.

The claimants said that the format was recorded electronically when blocks were created on the Bitcoin Blockchain. The court assumed the factual allegations and Dr Wright’s authorship claim in the claimants’ favour, but examined whether the alleged work had been fixed in a material form.

1. Permission to serve out. Permission to serve the re-amended claim form and amended particulars out of the jurisdiction was granted for the remaining causes of action. The claims concerning copyright in the Bitcoin File Format had to be deleted.
2. The serious-issue threshold requires a real, rather than fanciful, prospect of success and applies to each cause of action: Altimo Holdings and Investment Ltd v Kyrgyz Mobile Tel Ltd [2011] UKPC 7 at [71]; VTB Capital Plc v Nutritek International Corp [2013] UKSC 5 at [164].
3. Under section 3(2) of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, fixation is a condition of copyright subsistence. The putative work must be distinguished from any fixation. A fixation must also make the subject matter sufficiently identifiable with precision and objectivity.
4. A file format may qualify as a literary work, but the question depends on the facts. The examples relied upon involved content as well as structure. The Bitcoin blocks merely conformed to, and manifested, the alleged structure. No evidence showed that any block contained content defining or indicating that structure, or that the structure was fixed in the software or an early block.
5. The argument that running the software automatically satisfied fixation was therefore incorrect. So too was the argument that intellectual creation alone established a copyright work, or that fixation was merely a formality because the format could be identified.
6. The court refused permission to appeal. If the Court of Appeal disagreed, permission could be sought from that court.