It is much more than that.

Cypherpunks Public License is from cypherpunks, a part of the history leading up to Bitcoin. For more general information, see: Bitcoin: The dream of Cypherpunks, libertarians and crypto-anarchists

On the topic here: "Open source" is often copyrighted. Bitcoin source code is MIT licensed. Legally, it is copyrighted code.

CPL is not directly applicable to Bitcoin. But in the abstract, it shows concepts that answer the question of who can defend the Bitcoin name. Nobody controls Bitcoin. There is no legal Bitcoin trademark, and no entity with proprietary right to hold a trademark on the name "Bitcoin".

It would be dangerous if such an entity existed. Craig Wright has tried fraudulently claiming copyright of Bitcoin source code. If he could, he would probably claim trademark on "Bitcoin" name for his scam.

I myself disagree with CPL in some parts. But it succinctly summarizes the key concepts here.


Not a random site. It is the old personal website of Adam Back, the inventor of Hashcash (as cited in the Bitcoin Whitepaper, footnote 6). There is stuff there very interesting to history that led to the creation of Bitcoin.