![]() Pivotal to the defendants' case is the simple fact that Bitcoin was released under an open source MIT License, which bestows little in the way of any legal responsibility on those maintaining the software. "We believe that these lawsuits are frivolous, but we still have to oppose them vigorously," Jonas said in a statement. But bubbling under the surface is something that's fundamental to the future of software, and whether open source developers should have have a fiduciary duty to their users. The overarching story may well be about who does or doesn't get to control Bitcoin, and whether the project's core developer base should be forced to create some sort of "back door" to serve third-party access to private keys. While the latest episode to emerge around Bitcoin is somewhat different, it gives rise to similar issues. In other words, if the Act is to pass in its current form, developers might be less inclined to contribute to open source projects for fear of legal wrangles.Įlsewhere, some argue that the EU’s upcoming AI Act, which seeks to govern AI applications based on perceived risks, could create burdensome legal liability for open source developers working on general purpose AI systems (GPAI), and give greater power to well-financed big tech companies. In a letter to EU authorities last week, more than a dozen open source industry bodies said that the newly proposed Cyber Resilience Act, which seeks to codify cybersecurity practices for digital products sold in Europe, may have a "chilling effect" on software development, as open source developers could be held personally liable for security slip-ups that happen in a downstream product. In truth, the issue of the legal system interfering with open source software development has become a hot topic of late. In response, we propose a coordinated and formalized response to help defend developers." A familiar story "Open source developers, who are often independent, are especially susceptible to legal pressure. "Litigation and continued threats are having their intended effect - individual defendants have chosen to capitulate in the absence of legal support," the trio wrote. ![]() While they noted that the main purpose of the fund was to defend developers " from lawsuits regarding their activities in the Bitcoin ecosystem," they also noted that the ramifications extended far deeper into the broader open source realm. They pointed to the "multi-front litigation" that the Bitcoin community faces, including Craig Wright's efforts which they confirmed at the time it would be leading the defense for. The fund's founders initially penned an open letter to Bitcoin developers last year to explain their raison d'être. In his findings, Lord Justice Birss pointed to academic literature that questions whether public blockchains really are decentralized. appeals court reversed that decision back in March, allowing the case to proceed with a trial expected some time in 2024. Wright said that he lost access to private keys for 111,000 Bitcoins after his home network was hacked the previous year, and that it was the responsibility of key Bitcoin Core (the main version of the Bitcoin protocol software) developers to remedy illegitimate crypto transactions.Īlthough the case was initially dismissed last year before it made it to court, a U.K. The crux of the case in question dates back to 2021 when Wright, through a Seychelles-based firm called Tulip Trading, launched a so-called "letter before action" against 16 Bitcoin software developers, in an attempt to regain access to £4 billion ($5 billion) worth of Bitcoin he claims to own. That's according to the Jack Dorsey-backed Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund, which is taking on a case to defend 11 Bitcoin developers named in a lawsuit filed by Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist who emerged into the spotlight back in 2016 with a hotly disputed claim of being Bitcoin's founding father. A crypto wallet theft lawsuit brought about by a man who claims to be Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto could jeopardize the future of open source software development.
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