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[Polygon] Oculus lawsuit ends with half billion dollar judgment awarded to ZeniMax

It doesn't seem plausible that John Carmack had to Google how to wipe a hard drive, considering he has surely built dozens and dozens of computers in his day and sold/gave/disposed of what must be hundreds of HDD's. Presumably he would at minimum be familiar with DBAN, dozens of Windows wiping tools, or whatever exists in Linux, and could assuredly writen his own in about 10 minutes. Not even getting into how they would have come by such evidence, which I assume means he Googled it from his Zenimax computer. Definitely smells fabricated.

On what basis? "He's so smart, he wouldn't need to research that". Comedy gold.
 

Matt

Member
It doesn't seem plausible that John Carmack had to Google how to wipe a hard drive, considering he has surely built dozens and dozens of computers in his day and sold/gave/disposed of what must be hundreds of HDD's. Presumably he would at minimum be familiar with DBAN, dozens of Windows wiping tools, or whatever exists in Linux, and could assuredly writen his own in about 10 minutes. Not even getting into how they would have come by such evidence, which I assume means he Googled it from his Zenimax computer. Definitely smells fabricated.
That information was found by a court-appointed expert. Why would he fabricate anything?

Smart people just do dumb stuff sometimes.
 

AAK

Member
This particular one is over, but base on some of the rulings Zenimax is thinking of filling an injunction to halt the sale of Oculus headsets. Because the jury did find the Carmack lied, and stole electronic files, and source code (though they didnt award any money damages for it)

So they are only going to attempt Oculus from selling the Rift? What does Zenimax get if they succeed with this injunction (considering they don't even share the same direct market) ?
 
What's being suggested is basically akin to a Heart Surgeon Googling "Where's the Heart Located?".

Don't be daft.

Someone says they have evidence that he did something. You say "based on my second-hand internet-sourced understanding of the person in question, they would not have done that. Therefore the evidence is false."

Can you see what's wrong with that?
 

Wallach

Member
I'm glad that at least Luckey is being forced to pay a sum here himself. That's about the only "good" outcome of this thus far.
 

Matt

Member
So they are only going to attempt Oculus from selling the Rift? What does Zenimax get if they succeed with this injunction (considering they don't even share the same direct market) ?
If ZM gets the injunction, they can force FB to pay them (as a lump sum, licensing, money per unit, etc.) to lift it.
 

Reallink

Member
Don't be daft.

Someone says they have evidence that he did something. You say "based on my second-hand internet-sourced understanding of the person in question, they would not have done that. Therefore the evidence is false."

Can you see what's wrong with that?

My assumption was this evidence was found and presented by Zenimax or their payrolled experts, not an unbiased party. Thanks to the selective bolding of the poster I was quoting, I skipped over the court-appointed part. My mistake, and it still sounds preposterous and unbelievable.
 

Justified

Member
What's being suggested is basically akin to a Heart Surgeon Googling "Where's the Heart Located?".

In your attempt to defend him you are actually making him sound worst (combined with the fact he admitted to it, but I guess you skipped that part)
 

Bronetta

Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
The jury must have played through DOOM, Dishonored 2 and Skyrim Remastered last year and were like damn these games are fire I need more of these.



Advance free copies for Prey for the whole jury!
 
Except the court specifically ruled that Oculus tech does not contain any ZeniMax property. So I'm not sure where the standing is to demand sales of the Rift cease.

Jury ruled that Oculus directly infrigned upon ZeniMax's software copyrights, in a substantial manner. Rifts contain ZeniMax owned code, according to the jury ruling.
 

Justified

Member
Except the court specifically ruled that Oculus tech does not contain any ZeniMax property. So I'm not sure where the standing is to demand sales of the Rift cease.

Huh, they did find that Oculus infringement of copyrights and trademarks. What they did not find was that they misappropriated trade secrets

Earlier today, a jury in a U.S. District Court in Dallas awarded ZeniMax $500 million for Oculus' infringement of copyrights and trademarks and for violating a non-disclosure agreement.
http://www.polygon.com/2017/2/1/14478258/zenimax-oculus-injunction
 
Can you link to where that's stated? I haven't seen anything like that in reports of the ruling.

Sure, here's the polygon article: http://www.polygon.com/2017/2/1/14474198/oculus-lawsuit-verdict

Here's a .pdf of the court rulings, this particular ruling can be found on p 35 http://cdn.uploadvr.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/177110467696.pdf

Edit:

My impression was that those violations were for using Doom BFG in their presentations to investors and in their Kickstarter?

Nah, court documents specifically state that copyright infringements concern computer code. It actually goes as far as to state in the documents that it doesn't have anything to do with "any other type of copyrighted work or any use of copyrighted works by Defendants in promotional materials such as the Oculus Kickstarter".
 

Demoskinos

Member
I don't see how Oculus weathers the storm they are going through. Between this lawsuit all the garbage with Palmer Luckey and high ranking members of their development team being arrested for Child Pornography Oculus right now is in real sad shape.
 

Justified

Member
My impression was that those violations were for using Doom BFG in their presentations to investors and in their Kickstarter?

That was just the NDA violation part

(iv) there was a documented stream of computer code and other technical assistance flowing from ZeniMax to Oculus over the next 6 months; (v) Oculus in writing acknowledged getting critical source code from ZeniMax;

Oculus' response in this case that it didn't use any code or other assistance it received from ZeniMax was not credible, and is contradicted by the testimony of Oculus programmers (who admitted cutting and pasting ZeniMax code into the Oculus SDK), as well as by expert testimony

http://www.polygon.com/2017/2/1/14478258/zenimax-oculus-injunction
 

jax

Banned
Facebook should have sold Oculus instead of paying this out. This will not be the first time they have to cover Luckey's tracks. I really hope other companies put a headset out soon, I hate how Oculus is the only option besides the Vive. Makes VR, as a whole, look really bad.
 

Seiru

Banned
Sure, here's the polygon article: http://www.polygon.com/2017/2/1/14474198/oculus-lawsuit-verdict

Here's a .pdf of the court rulings, this particular ruling can be found on p 35 http://cdn.uploadvr.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/177110467696.pdf

Edit:



Nah, court documents specifically state that copyright infringements concern computer code. It actually goes as far as to state in the documents that it doesn't have anything to do with "any other type of copyrighted work or any use of copyrighted works by Defendants in promotional materials such as the Oculus Kickstarter".


Thanks, so basically, the jury found that Carmack helped with the Rift, and thus ZeniMax effectively owns his code?
 

Justified

Member
Thanks, so basically, the jury found that Carmack helped with the Rift, and thus ZeniMax effectively owns his code?

They found he (while he was with Zenimax, and after he left) copied code from Zenimax computers, Oculus programmers copy/paste that code into their SDKs, and Carmack tried to cover his tracks once the lawyers came-a-calling
 
Good. Once some shit leaked out a week or two ago, it seemed pretty easily that Zenimax had a serious case. Good on them. Fuck any wrong doers.
 
Thanks, so basically, the jury found that Carmack helped with the Rift, and thus ZeniMax effectively owns his code?

The way you write it makes it seem like the jury made inferences.

Actual evidence of copied code was found: Oculus was found to directly infringe on copyrighted code, with Palmer, Brendan and Carmack found to "contributorily" infringe on copyrighted code
 
Carmack loves the idea of open source everything and sharing of code/ideas. Nothing he did really reads as malicious, though he very obviously knew there would be *some* ramifications if Zenimax looked into it

Occculus and Carmack do look bad in this, but hopefully this is the extent of it
 

Matt

Member
Carmack loves the idea of open source everything and sharing of code/ideas. Nothing he did really reads as malicious, though he very obviously knew there would be *some* ramifications if Zenimax looked into it

Occculus and Carmack do look bad in this, but hopefully this is the extent of it
Purposefully destroying evidence isn't malicious?
 
http://www.polygon.com/2017/2/1/14478258/zenimax-oculus-injunction

K now they trying to stop Oculus sales, sabotage VR..
I wonder what kind of ramifications this will have to the Ocukus brand. On PC they seem to be already divisive due to their handling of the Oculus Store, and both the Vive and PS VR seem more popular among enthusiasts

Though most people I have heard outside of the smaller enthusiast communities generally refer to VR as the Oculus Rift, kind of in the same way that every game system used to be refered to as a Nintendo, so the name still has cache

It's been a rough year for Oculus, though. Basically from their launch and price announcement onwards
Purposefully destroying evidence isn't malicious?
I mean more he wasn't doing it to actively harm Zenimax, but more because he was interested in the technology. It was malicious in the sense that, in destroying evidence, he was very aware of the illegality of what he was doing
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
I wonder how this value compares with the profits made on the occulus project as a whole.

Has Oculus made any profit that wasn't part of being bought by Facebook? Between R&D and hardware costs I wouldn't expect them to have made anything on product yet.
 
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