Quote from: xtraelv on Today at 08:52:33 AM

Bruce Fenton also wrote a great analysis. http://brucefenton.com/blog/copyright-and-the-bitcoin-white-paper/

Wow no, that analysis is just top to bottom full of errors.

"Papers by themselves aren’t licensed". Not true. Post Berne convention, any copyrightable work is copyrighted by default, and you cannot reproduce it without a license of some kind. (excepting some special cases like works of the US Federal government) Papers often do specify licensing (unless they're all-rights-reserved: in which case you're just getting no license).

"Open source documentation is also not copyrighted if it is given away in an open source license." All licensed open source works are copyrighted. The license permits you to do all sorts of stuff (if its an open source license), but it's still copyrighted and some rights are usually reserved (for example, even the most permissive licenses don't generally allow you to falsify attribution or strip licensing info).

"If the author or other owner claims ownership and registers it or uses (c), date and the copyright holder’s name at publication then it’s usually considered copyrighted." post berne convention no copyright notice is required for a work to be copyrighted. It's considered a polite practice, but is legally unimportant now.

"the gift can’t be taken back and claimed as a copyright." The work is still copyrighted, so this sentence is just incoherent. The licenses isn't revocable.

"If a copyright holder allows publication of a work by other sources and does not challenge this, the holder weakens its claim.", unlike trademark there is no duty to enforce in copyright. Though there may be equitable defences in some situations (see mention in the letter) they are generally fairly narrow, and don't implicitly create a duty to enforce.

Providing actually false information doesn't help anyone, even if it's falsehoods used to cheer along a good cause.