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Zenimax Lawsuit Against Oculus Now Directly Accuses John Carmack Of Theft

Curufinwe

Member
Game Informer has a story on the amended complaint with lost of juicy details.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...ow-direcly-accuses-john-carmack-of-theft.aspx

Zenimax has filed an amended complaint against VR pioneer Oculus, which marks the latest update in a suit that has been raging since May 2014. The complaint, which alleges a variety of transgressions, now includes Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe and id Software co-founder John Carmack by name.

The suit also directly names Oculus parent company Facebook, with amended charges against the VR company that further detail a key source of conflict: misappropriated Zenimax property. Specifically, the filing now spells out theft allegations against the id Software co-founder and Oculus’ current chief technology officer John Carmack.

“Instead of complying with his contract, during his last days at ZeniMax, he 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.”
 

dugdug

Banned
“Instead of complying with his contract, during his last days at ZeniMax, he copied thousands of documents from a computer at ZeniMax to a USB storage device,”

Yikes. Not a good look for Carmack if legit.
 
"Instead of complying with his contract, during his last days at ZeniMax, he copied thousands of documents from a computer at ZeniMax to a USB storage device,”
tumblr_mgforp038s1s21ilgo1_400.gif
 

Fersis

It is illegal to Tag Fish in Tag Fishing Sanctuaries by law 38.36 of the GAF Wildlife Act
If true, I don't know wtf Carmack was thinking. This is corporate conduct 101.

He probably copy the coded he wrote ... while working on his company.
But yeah, kinda sucks if this is true.
 
Maybe he was banking on Zenimax being too afraid to litigate against Facebook's armada of lawyers.

This is going to get interesting, and would be an absurdly tragic end to Carmack's career if true. We wouldn't be where we are with 3D games today without him.
 
“Instead of complying with his contract, during his last days at ZeniMax, he 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.”

uzjvdqmoahgjtn8ea5-6rb0skf.png
 

Futurematic

Member
We are just reading one side of this. Also Zenimax is one of the publishers still operating in a real cut throat way, see Prey 2 & Human Head, so based on their previous operations I wouldn't extend them much credibility.

That said if their version is anywhere close to reality… this is going to be ugly.
 
Isn't this the plot to Silicon Valley Season 1?

With Carmack being Richard and Zenimax being Hooli?

I'll wait for more details, it's probably not as simple as either side claims.
 

Fersis

It is illegal to Tag Fish in Tag Fishing Sanctuaries by law 38.36 of the GAF Wildlife Act
Maybe he was banking on Zenimax being too afraid to litigate against Facebook's armada of lawyers.

This is going to get interesting, and would be an absurdly tragic end to Carmack's career if true. We wouldn't be where we are with 3D games today without him.

Woah there little buddy, if this is true Facebook gonna have to pay some bucks thats all.
 

gcubed

Member
Isn't this the plot to Silicon Valley Season 1?

With Carmack being Richard and Zenimax being Hooli?

I'll wait for more details, it's probably not as simple as either side claims.

yes, but in reality Richard would have been fucked because he was legally in the wrong, and not gotten away on a technicality to extend the show
 
This part on Iribe doesn't sound so hot either if true (from same article):

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."
 

Xav

Member
I'm expecting a lot of "he said, she said" finger pointing from both sides. With that said, both parties are better off with each other anyway.

Carmack gets to focus on VR stuff and ID gets to release it's first good game since Quake III.
 

JP

Member
I've obviously got no idea what the hell happened there but if what they are claiming is true then what he did was idiotic. It sounds almost too stupid to be true.
 

Fugu

Member
Carmack is one of the few people in this industry that I support on principle and I feel comfortable with that position in this situation.

There's this notion that accpetable corporate behavior is dictated by inflexible and balck-and-white laws, but that's bullshit. Besides, I'm not sure I care much about conduct in this instance in the first place.
 

Logash

Member
If this is true it's probably code he wrote. According to Masters of Doom Carmack is not a fan of code being owned by anyone. I lean towards his point of view but the law is the law.
 
Carmack is one of the few people in this industry that I support on principle and I feel comfortable with that position in this situation.

There's this notion that accpetable corporate behavior is dictated by inflexible and balck-and-white laws, but that's bullshit. Besides, I'm not sure I care much about conduct in this instance in the first place.
You can believe that all you want but it really doesn't matter since he and Facebook can still get the pants sued off them because of what he did regardless.
 

Eusis

Member
If this is true it's probably code he wrote. According to Masters of Doom Carmack is not a fan of code being owned by anyone. I lean towards his point of view but the law is the law.
Yeah, I figure he probably treated like pre-buyout id and disregarded that they were now part of a corporation and they're going to want to be a stickler over these sorts of things. Also see Doom using Denuvo and likely not being as mod friendly (need to look and see if that really is the case though.)
 
This part on Iribe doesn't sound so hot either if true (from same article):

eh, eh. the software component for VR is important sure. however, head tracking demos were already being shown on YouTube not long after the Wii came out and showed how ir tracking with gyroscopes could provide that. a majority of the work in contemporary VR is related to lenses, the headset, and the camera tracking. I doubt zenimax had any part of that.
 

Fugu

Member
You can believe that all you want but it really doesn't matter since he and Facebook can still get the pants sued off them because of what he did regardless.
They'll live.

This is, in all likelihood, the story of a man stealing from himself. I'm sure everyone involved knows that.
 

Risette

A Good Citizen
Not surprised a hardcore libertarian Paulite would have little regard for rules, regulations, and the law.

Seems like exactly the sort of thing he would do tbh.
 
He probably copy the coded he wrote ... while working on his company.

This is the first thing I thought of when reading it. He was very likely copying over all the stuff he has done. Which, I can understand, but he really should have known better as that's generally a big legal corporate thing that you shouldn't be doing.
 
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised he did that after reading all the stuff he pulled in Masters of Doom.

But Facebook is watching his back so he'll come out of this fine.

I thought Carmack was supposed to be a genius?

Yeah he is but boy oh boy did he love to take shit from his time at Softdisk.
 

5taquitos

Member
They'll live.

This is, in all likelihood, the story of a man stealing from himself. I'm sure everyone involved knows that.

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.
 
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