Carmack accused of stealing Zenimax's tech for Oculus VR

[Boleskine]

 

[Infinitron]

New update this year to tell you the drama will be next year: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/10/game-publishers-lawsuit-against-oculus-moves-forward/

Game Publisher’s Lawsuit Against Oculus Moves Forward
By NICK WINGFIELD AUGUST 10, 2015 9:22 PM August 10, 2015 9:22 pm

A federal judge has refused to throw out a lawsuit filed by a games publisher accusing Oculus VR of stealing trade secrets and code in the creation of the Oculus virtual-reality headset.

The ruling late last month by Jorge A. Solis, a judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas, denied a request to dismiss the lawsuit by two of the defendants in the case, Oculus and Palmer Luckey, the company’s co-founder who came up with the idea for the Oculus virtual-reality headset.

On Monday, the judge also ruled against a similar request by a third defendant in the case, Facebook, which acquired Oculus for $2 billion last year.

The ruling is a win for ZeniMax Media, the game publisher, which sued Oculus last year, following the Facebook deal. ZeniMax accused Oculus of stealing its expertise and code in the creation of the Oculus Rift headset.

The lawsuit centers on help that John Carmack, then a ZeniMax employee and the designer behind iconic games like Doom and Quake, provided to Mr. Luckey as he was starting Oculus. Mr. Carmack later joined Oculus as its chief technology officer and ZeniMax contends that the assistance that Mr. Carmack gave to Mr. Luckey was illegal.

It’s too early to say whether ZeniMax will win the case against Oculus. At this stage, the judge wrote in his ruling, ZeniMax merely had to show enough facts to make a plausible claim for relief. It is not, he wrote, the court’s job “at this juncture to decide whether defendants would prevail on the merits of the case.”

The judge has scheduled a jury trial in the case to begin Aug. 1 of next year.

Spokesmen for Oculus, ZeniMax and Facebook declined to comment on the judge’s ruling.

 

[Outlander]

Zionmax probably has that Mexican judge in their payroll.

 

[Euronymous]

Wow, ZeniMax is full of braindead fuck-tarded moronic idiotic stupid imbeciles.

 

[m_s0]

Read it as 'feral judge.'

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Lol, whoever wins, we lose.

 

[A horse of course]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-08-23-zenimax-raises-the-stakes-in-oculus-vr-lawsuit

According to the complaint, "Instead of complying with his contract, during his last days at ZeniMax, he [Carmack] copied thousands of documents from a computer at ZeniMax to a USB storage device," the amended filing (below) alleges. "He never returned those files or all copies of them after his employment with ZeniMax was terminated. In addition, after Carmack's employment with ZeniMax was terminated, he returned to ZeniMax's premises to take a customized tool for developing VR Technology belonging to ZeniMax that itself is part of ZeniMax's VR technology."

 

[Alienman]

Todd Howard wants his porn pics back.

 

[Astral Rag]

Because simply butchering Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake wasn't enough for those hacks.

 

[A horse of course]

TNO>Wolfenstein 2009

 

[a mod]

Zionmax probably has that Mexican judge in their payroll.

Take in third world immigrants, become third world country with kangaroo courts....

 

[a mod]

Looks like Carmack did indeed sign one of those ugly employment contracts where the company owns everything he came up with related to the industry they work in:

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/2182...r_understand_Zenimaxs_suit_against_Oculus.php

That is not very restrictive really. A lot of them try to take all work you do even outside of work on your own computer. This just protects work you actually did on site...which means nothing.

So really this lawsuit should be thrown out unless they can drudge up actual source code from zenimax that is used in oculus rift...which doesn't even make any fucking sense. It's like saying someone stole parts from your lawnmower to use to fix their skateboard...I mean wut?

So yeah by any remotely noncorrupt judge this should have been thrown out a long time ago.

 

[Spectacle]

Zionmax probably has that Mexican judge in their payroll.

Take in third world immigrants, become third world country with kangaroo courts....

Are you saying that US courts have ever not been corrupt?

 

[a mod]

Zionmax probably has that Mexican judge in their payroll.

Take in third world immigrants, become third world country with kangaroo courts....

Are you saying that US courts have ever not been corrupt?

I've sued people quite a few times actually and always got a fair result even if not exactly what I wanted. I also know a judge and used to boink his assistant and heard about all the cases...some of them involved a lot of money but they were obviously not completely paid off.

I don't think US courts have always been absolutely infallible but now that we have a shitload of jews and mexicans and all kind of other shit in the mix who don't even understand let alone try to uphold some kind of objectivity they are rapidly becoming a complete joke.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

So, does this case have legs?

 

[Spectacle]

So, does this case have legs?

Any case will have legs when it's backed by facebook money.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

This is how the Zenimax lawyers have discovered the evidence:

 

[Perkel]

Guess NASA needs to watch out. Carmack worked there too...

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-17-facebooks-mark-zuckerberg-set-to-defend-oculus-in-court

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg set to defend Oculus in court
Will argue ZeniMax "was slow to appreciate potential of VR".

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is set to defend Oculus in court today in the lawsuit with id Software owner ZeniMax over the development of virtual reality technology.

ZeniMax, which also owns The Elder Scrolls and Fallout maker Bethesda, is suing Facebook for $2bn over claims it stole its virtual reality technology.

ZeniMax said Oculus unlawfully copied its early VR tech as it built its own headset, the Rift. Facebook bought Oculus in 2014 for an eye-watering $2bn.

According to the BBC, Zuckerberg will argue ZeniMax "was slow to appreciate the potential of VR - and that it was Oculus' own work that made it the valuable technology it is today".

"We're eager to present our case in court," a spokesman for Oculus said.

"Oculus and its founders have invested a wealth of time and money in VR because we believe it can fundamentally transform the way people interact and communicate.

"We're disappointed that another company is using wasteful litigation to attempt to take credit for technology that it did not have the vision, expertise, or patience to build."

Central to the lawsuit is legendary video game programmer John Carmack. Carmack worked or both id and Oculus for a brief period in 2013, but left ZeniMax completely in November 2013 to work full-time at Oculus.

ZeniMax accuses Carmack of sharing its intellectual property with Oculus while he was working at id Software and claims he took it with him when he left.

In a statement, ZeniMax said it and id Software "welcome the opportunity to present substantial evidence" in court.

"That evidence includes the theft of trade secrets and highly confidential information, including computer code. ZeniMax will also present evidence of the Defendants' intentional destruction of evidence to cover up their wrongdoing. ZeniMax and id Software are the visionary developers of breakthrough VR technology and look forward to the vindication of our claims."

Carmack's lawyers counter this by arguing his contract explicitly allowed him to work with other companies that did not compete with ZeniMax, and thus the tech he helped create did not belong to ZeniMax in the first place.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, who has gone off the radar after it emerged he had funded an online troll campaign in support of Donald Trump, is also expected to be called to the stand this week.

The developer of a sci-fi horror shooter recently released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One has been caught out threatening game websites in a bid to avoid neg…

ZeniMax says Luckey lacked the expertise to create a viable virtual reality headset, and relied on ZeniMax to help create the prototype that impressed Facebook.

The case, which is taking place in a Dallas, Texas court is expected to last three weeks.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/01/zenimax-partial-win-oculus-lawsuit/

Oculus to pay $500 million after ZeniMax lawsuit ends
However, the VR company wasn't found guilty of swiping trade secrets.

ZeniMax is triumphant in its lawsuit against Oculus over alleged technology theft... well, sort of. A Texas jury has determined that Oculus must pay $500 million to ZeniMax over claims that Palmer Luckey didn't comply with a non-disclosure agreement he signed with the game publisher. However, what didn't happen is more telling. The jury found that Oculus didn't steal trade secrets from ZeniMax when it hired John Carmack. In other words, one of the cornerstones of the case didn't hold up.

Neither side is going to be all that happy with the results. ZeniMax had been asking for $4 billion in compensation and damages -- it's only getting an eighth of that. Oculus, meanwhile, won't be pleased at having to pay anything. It maintained its innocence from the start, and has long characterized the lawsuit as both a cash grab (to take advantage of all that Facebook money) and a sign of jealousy after losing a game industry legend like Carmack.

We've reached out to both companies and will let you know what (if anything) they intend to do next, although Oculus has already said that it plans to appeal. It's safe to say that Facebook and Oculus aren't about to change course on their virtual reality plans any time soon, and that ZeniMax isn't about to drop its technology theft accusations.

That's a lot of dough. That should help Bethesda to make a leap of faith and purchase Obsidian.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Why did they have to pay at all if the tech wasn't stolen?

 

[Black]

Of the two I hate zenimax much more and righteously so
Literally jews outjewing jews to see who can jew goyim the best.
It's like that thing Somberlain was talking about.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Why did they have to pay at all if the tech wasn't stolen?

Judiciary socialism.

 

[vortex]

That's a lot of dough. That should help Bethesda to make a leap of faith and purchase Obsidian.

Or Bethesda could invest a couple of million dollars in Poe2 Fig campaign. There are various ways to support Obsidian.

 

[sullynathan]

did carmack really search how to wipe a USB?