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Jury Orders Oculus To Pay $500 Million In ZeniMax Lawsuit (polygon.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Polygon: A Dallas, Texas jury today awarded half a billion dollars to ZeniMax after finding that Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey, and by extension Oculus, failed to comply with a non-disclosure agreement he signed. In awarding ZeniMax $500 million, the jury also said that Oculus did not misappropriate trade secrets as contended by ZeniMax. Of the $500 million, Oculus is paying out $200 million for breaking the NDA and $50 million for copyright infringement. Oculus and Luckey each have to pay $50 million for false designation. And Iribe has to pay $150 million for the same, final count. The decision came back Wednesday afternoon following two and a half days of deliberation in the case being tried in a United States District court in the North District of Texas. Both id Software co-founder John Carmack and Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey were in the courtroom when the verdict was read. During closing arguments, ZeniMax attorney Anthony Sammi called the incident a heist and argued that ZeniMax should be awarded $2 billion in compensation and another $2 billion in punitive damages. Oculus attorney Beth Wilkinson argued that the multibillion-dollar lawsuit was driven by ZeniMax's embarrassment, jealousy and anger, not facts. It remains unclear what sort of impact this will have on the daily retail sale of the Oculus Rift headsets.
[X] Rekt
[ ] Not rekt
We'll see what happens on appeal, and what this means to companies that poach employees in the future.
It remains unclear what sort of impact this will have on the daily retail sale of the Oculus Rift headsets.
Probably none -- at least, not until after Oculus' appeal is heard.
Breakfast served all day!
I used to work for Bethesda, a ZeniMax company. Never seen a more legally aggressive employment agreement, I had to reject initial offer until they added an addendum. Without it was essentially a multi-year multi-industry no-compete phrased to get around state laws banning no-compete clauses...
This is a case of a smart person being dumb. If you want technology to be yours, you don't let it touch any machine owned by another company and you do it all on your own time. How a person could muddy the waters like this when the stakes are so high is beyond me.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Zenimax is in MD, Oculus in CA...yet the trial is in the North District of Texas...? I've been around Slashdot long enough to understand why there are so many trials like this in the "North District of Texas" but it's still baloney that lawyers can shop the district they want to file in. I for one would like my criminal trial to be held in the state which is most lenient to whatever my crime is....
Forgive my legal ignorance (IANAL :), what does 'false designation' mean?
No, that wasn't about hiring Carmack away, that was about the code he took with him.
The jury didn't feel it was proven that the code Carmack took with him was related to VR shit that he then used at Oculus.
But of course it fucking was. That's likely why the amounts are so huge for the NDA shit the jury agreed was absolutely proven.
You're all messed up and wrong:
10 kilograms zip ties
25 kilogram duct tape (various colors)
100 kg Doritos
500 kg coffee beans
Redundant coffee bean grinders / brewers (avoid K-cups)
Enough solar cells to run a laptop
Spare laptop
Porn as desired
Reruns of Firefly, Red Dwarf, Alien
Am I missing something?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Of course Oculus isn't going to just hand over $500M to Zenimax, there will probably be a battle of attrition costing both decades of expensive legal appeals until the first one cracks.
Of course Zuckerberg has the resources to do the above, but that would be expensive (although not as expensive as $500M). It seems to me a far more cost-effective alternative would be to have Oculus sell its VR tech to Facebook, then just let Oculus collapse and go bust, taking its 500M debts and poor management team with it. After that, Zuck could just start a whole new VR company with the VR tech he already bought. Hell he could even hire many of the same people back. If bet if he called the new company Occulus (i.e. not Oculus), I bet hardly anyone would even notice anything changed.
McGyver list
1. Paperclip
This isn't really a copyright dispute. It's a labor dispute.
This reminds me of the John Fogerty vs Fantasy Records dispute.
After Fogerty left Credence he went on a solo career and he was sued by Fantasy for sounding to much like himself.
If Bethesda can't prove that Cormack didn't copy any code that They own, I don't see how they have a case.
This sets a terrible precedent for the rites of programmers and frankly I think the only reason they're getting away with it is because Facebook is the parent company.
Going to an appeals court near you in 3, 2, 1.
Seriously, this is round 1 out of 5, especially with the amount of money we are talking here.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Just because he made the mistake of working a bit on VR while he was still employed at Zenimax, even though they haven't done anything VR related, ever... These kind of company policies should be illegal.
More specifically, the claim was that the music of "The Old Man Down the Road" was essentially a copy of "Run Through the Jungle". Fantasy owned the copyright to Run, and therefore also Old Man, *if* Old Man was a copy of Run.
The jury found that it was not a copy. Judgement for Fogerty.
Fogerty then sought attorney's fees; the court ruled that Fantasy's suit was not frivolous and denied fees. Fogerty took the issue of fees it to the Supreme Court, who agreed with the District Court - attorney's fees *may* be awarded if the suit if frivolous or brought in bad faith, the statute does not require that fees be awarded in all cases.
The code Carmack tool was for Doom 3. You know, the very same code HE personally wrote, owned, and released under GPL before selling ID Software.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
All of the court documents are available at the link below, including lawyer arguments and questions from the jury: https://www.docketalarm.com/ca...
Disclosure: I run Docket Alarm.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
this is because asshole managers who reprioritise the bug list, and make some obvious quick fixers so -1000 its not funny.
My moto is, if im coding after my 40hrs/week, its free time, and I can do whatever fucking bug I like. Since officially, I am coding for free, not being paid over time, fuck your priority lists. I will fix whatever god damn bug I like thats fun to fix, or quick to fix.
Always the priorities are bull shit any way.
There should be a dual layer of priorities where quick, simple , 5 minute fixers should be as high priority as show stoppers.
Even if a bug is so low priority, but embarrassing, but fixable in 5 seconds, FIX IT. Or we should be allowed to fix whatever god damn bug we emotionally fucking feel like it to feel happy, or to get more Bugs/Day done.
We coders arent robots, we have intelligence that we should be allowed to override our slave masters wishes.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.