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Zenimax Lawsuit Against Oculus Now Directly Accuses John Carmack Of Theft

Vol5

Vol5

Member
After his contract was terminated he was still allowed access the zenimax building.

Fucking derp. Basic security 101 failure on zenimax's part.
 
F

Fugu

Member
5taquitos said:
Sure, he may have taken code that he created himself, but if he did it on Zenimax's time, then it is not his.

That's how companies work.
Click to expand...
Right, and it's how people work that I don't give two shits about the squabbling of two multinational corporations when the offense in question boils down to a man stealing from himself.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
Likely Carmack did take some of his own files off of his work computer, this would be tough for Facebook to prove outright so looking for that huge settlement.
 
T

tenchir

Member
Does Zenimax have any evidence they accused Carmack of doing? If it's a he said/she said situation, then I don't think Zenimax will be successful.
 
R

RK128

Member
I really don't trust this, mainly from how shady Bethesdia/Zenimax were with Prey 2's development & treatment toward Human Head. So its a bit hard to believe clams they might make when they lied about Prey 2's Development toward the press.

But if this whole story is true....then man, Carmack is in deep trouble :(. I guess we will see more facts come to light as this story develops.
 
A

Armaros

Member
Big-E said:
Why didn't he copy those files before he left or keep personal backups before?
Click to expand...

Because all of those are still big no-nos?

"Can I keep a personal copy of all the companies work on X?" should sure go over well to his bosses.

And doing it without permission would put him right back in this position.
 
joecanada

joecanada

Member
Vol5 said:
After his contract was terminated he was still allowed access the zenimax building.

Fucking derp. Basic security 101 failure on zenimax's part.
Click to expand...

Because normally employees return to steal from their company? I've had access cards for months after leaving places .
 
G

georly

Member
Uhhhhhhhh

Wow.

I have a really hard time believing carmack is that dumb. I hope these are false allegations, but if not, that's seriously awful.
 
K

Kaako

Felium Defensor
Carmack is legit fucked though if any of these are true. Why would you even risk this shit knowing how corporations operate?
 
R

Risette

A Good Citizen
Fugu said:
Right, and it's how people work that I don't give two shits about the squabbling of two multinational corporations when the offense in question boils down to a man stealing from himself.
Click to expand...
If it's true then it's not stealing from himself; it's stealing from Zenimax. If he wanted to own his own code then he should've left after Zenimax acquired id. Code written on Zenimax's time and money would belong to them. This is how the real world works.
 
SinSilla

SinSilla

Member
wanderingprostheyltite said:
This part on Iribe doesn't sound so hot either if true (from same article):
Click to expand...

Thats bullshit though: development of the Oculus Rift began well before Carmack was even remotely involved. Quite a lot of that is well documented at mtbs3d. The prototype Rift has been sent for demo to other members of mtbs3d back then (again before Carmack was involved) as well. The name and Logo of oculus existed already as well. (Danny Unger of cloudhead games did the first Logo if I remember right)

A lot of later oculus Staff were people from the Community there.

Sure things got more complicated as John demoed it at E3 (and wouldnt have taken off in the same way, yes) and they started a legal Business, but discrediting Palmer in that way is factual wrong.
 
F

Fugu

Member
Armaros said:
Which would not be a real defense against what he is being accused of.

Not legally
Click to expand...

El Topo said:
Pro tip: Don't use that defense in court. Ever.
Click to expand...
I'm not making an assessment on whether or not he'll win the case; indeed, any such commentary by anyone in this thread would rate somewhere between greatly misinformed and grossly misinformed.

I'm just saying that as people we can appreciate that the only reason that there are two horses in this race is that id employed a guy named John Carmack.
 
J

jwhit28

Member
I know legally he most likely doesn't have a leg to stand on, but it's hard to picture a man being charged with stealing IP from a business he started in the house he lived in. I know he legally relinquished that right to Bethesda but I can understand if it never registered mentally though.
 
N

novabolt

Member
Carmack: Why you, why you keep the suits like dat? Why you move like dat?

Zenimax: Cos I hit the court 50 deep (aye, aye)


On a serious note, if Zenimax have a case against Carmack, Carmack done mess up. Also, wouldn't the Servers Admins known straight away? Strange that they left it till now or maybe Zenimax was trying to build a air tight case against John. Zenimax is one of the worst companies to mess with, their founder was a lawyer for gods sake.
 
P

Paches

Member
Further, the suit increases its allegations that Palmer Luckey is not the inventor of contemporary virtual reality. In the original filing, Zenimax states that "Luckey increasingly held himself out to the media and the public as the visionary developer of the Rift’s VR Technology, which had actually been developed by ZeniMax without Luckey’s involvement."

The similar passage from the amended complaint is far more damning, suggesting that Iribe knowingly spread a tall tale about Luckey creating VR in his parents' garage. "Oculus, at Iribe’s direction, disseminated to the press the false and fanciful story that Luckey was the brilliant inventor of VR technology who had developed that technology in his parents’ garage," the new document reads. "In fact, that story was utterly and completely false: Luckey lacked the training, expertise, resources, or know-how to create commercially viable VR technology, his computer programming skills were rudimentary, and he relied on ZeniMax's computer program code and games to demonstrate the prototype Rift. Nevertheless, this fraudulent tale was frequently reported in the media as fact. Luckey increasingly and falsely held himself out to the media and the public as the visionary developer of the Rift’s VR Technology, which had actually been developed by ZeniMax without any substantial contribution from Luckey."
Click to expand...

Woof.

Edit: pasted above, but yeah. IF that is true, damn. Luckey rode the coattails of Carmack's creation that was Zenimax property? Huge if true.
 
F

Fugu

Member
Risette said:
If it's true then it's not stealing from himself; it's stealing from Zenimax. If he wanted to own his own code then he should've left after Zenimax acquired id. Code written on Zenimax's time and money would belong to them. This is how the real world works.
Click to expand...
All of a sudden y'all got law degrees!

Again, no comment on the projected outcome of the case, except to say that it would be stupid to base the veracity of Zenimax's claims on... Zenimax's claims. I'm just saying that even if he loses I don't really think he did anything wrong.
 
A

Armaros

Member
Fugu said:
All of a sudden y'all got law degrees!

Again, no comment on the projected outcome of the case, except to say that it would be stupid to base the veracity of Zenimax's claims on... Zenimax's claims. I'm just saying that even if he loses I don't really think he did anything wrong.
Click to expand...

If he loses, by definition he did something wrong ...
 
A

androvsky

Member
5taquitos said:
Sure, he may have taken code that he created himself, but if he did it on Zenimax's time, then it is not his.

That's how companies work.
Click to expand...

Depends on how his contract with Zenimax was worded when they bought id. There's a good chance he had a stipulation that he could own at least part of what he was doing while on the clock, or perhaps off the clock while working late on his own projects. If anyone's in a position to make that demand during a buyout, it's John Carmack. He also sounds like someone that's likely to make that demand.
 
5

5taquitos

Member
Fugu said:
All of a sudden y'all got law degrees!

Again, no comment on the projected outcome of the case, except to say that it would be stupid to base the veracity of Zenimax's claims on... Zenimax's claims. I'm just saying that even if he loses I don't really think he did anything wrong.
Click to expand...

You don't need a law degree to know that you don't own anything you make when you're on the clock at a company. All you need is to have worked for a company where you have to sign a contract, they're all the same (relatively).

Sorry your hero (allegedly) fucked up.
 
W

WhateverItTakes

Banned
Yeesh. Can't take work from one place to the other, that's pretty cut and dry.

Have we heard anything about Zenimax's VR solution or did they give up after this saga took shape?
 
F

Fugu

Member
5taquitos said:
You don't need a law degree to know that you don't own anything you make when you're on the clock at a company. All you need is to have worked for a company where you have to sign a contract, they're all the same (relatively).

Sorry your hero (allegedly) fucked up.
Click to expand...
You probably should have a law degree if you're going to be evaluating whether or not a contract has been violated. You should probably also have access to the contract.

He's not my hero, just someone who I personally have a lot of respect for.
 
joecanada

joecanada

Member
Fugu said:
All of a sudden y'all got law degrees!

Again, no comment on the projected outcome of the case, except to say that it would be stupid to base the veracity of Zenimax's claims on... Zenimax's claims. I'm just saying that even if he loses I don't really think he did anything wrong.
Click to expand...

Well it's because you want to have your cake and eat it too. Do you know how many inventions have been created by very smart people at 3m while working for 3m ? The reason they work there is for steady paycheck, benefits, pension.
And in return they own 0 point 0 percent of those inventions.
 
D

deadlast

Member
georaldc said:
Yikes if true. I was always impressed by that prototype-in-garage-at-a-young-age story
Click to expand...

Prototypes in your garage are yours (but that doesn't seem like what happened here). When you build something on company time with company resources, that thing belongs to the company. This is very basic stuff that John knew. Rift must not have been as far along as Zenimax was, so he just took it. This is some very serious shit.
 
A

Armaros

Member
Fugu said:
You probably should have a law degree if you're going to be evaluating whether or not a contract has been violated. You should probably also have access to the contract.

He's not my hero, just someone who I personally have a lot of respect for.
Click to expand...

Thats funny considering your posts in this thread.
 
X

Xamtheking

Member
Fugu said:
You probably should have a law degree if you're going to be evaluating whether or not a contract has been violated. You should probably also have access to the contract.

He's not my hero, just someone who I personally have a lot of respect for.
Click to expand...
If it wasn't in the contract, why would Zenimax be going up against the giant that is Facebook that they knew they could not win because they didn't have the law on their side?
 
Danny Dudekisser

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
I feel like I'm missing the first half of this article. What are these documents Carmack allegedly stole?

This is some straight drama, in any case. We in for a ride, boys.
 
M

morpix

Member
Carmack was so used to being the head honcho of a company, he forgot that your work belongs to the people you're employed by. Especially if you did that work on their clock, which is exactly what he did for the DOOM 3 BFG Edition 3D stuff.
I'm not sure why he'd want the tools/docs/whatever he took, because he's obviously smart enough to rewrite that work. Zenimax doesn't own his brain. It could just be "I didn't want to redo all this".
 
M

Mindlog

Member
WhateverItTakes said:
Yeesh. Can't take work from one place to the other, that's pretty cut and dry.

Have we heard anything about Zenimax's VR solution or did they give up after this saga took shape?
Click to expand...
Zenimax's VR Solution: "There's money in those words. We doing anything? Let's play it safe and say we are. VR Fallout. Yeah."
 
R

Riptwo

Member
I thought that Luckey's research/initial building was pretty well documented on mtbs3d.com, and I'm wondering if they're taking this angle based on Carmack's software lens correction rather than the initial hardware build. I also thought the initial narrative was that they didn't see any value in VR, prompting Carmack to exit, which would make it pretty goofy if they now wanted to take credit for its resurgence.

Guess we'll find out!
 
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