Carmack accused of stealing Oculus Rift tech

[roadworx]

Flesh420 said:

LMAO... A rocket scientist, that knows the inner-working of how data is stored on a hard-drive, googles how to delete files so forensics doesn't find it.

That's just flat silly.

how is that silly? i mean, half the time spent coding is just looking stuff up on stackoverflow

[Gez]

Flesh420 said:

LMAO... A rocket scientist, that knows the inner-working of how data is stored on a hard-drive, googles how to delete files so forensics doesn't find it.

That's just flat silly.

Why would he know the inner working of hard drives? How would that help him design rockets? Besides what kind of hard drives are we talking about anyway, because between the mechanical disk drives and the newer single-state drives and the virtual drives offered by things such as RAID arrays, there are a lot of different factors to take into account. What if you're using a journalized file-system? Even if the data itself has been thoroughly thrashed it may keep track that there was a file.


You really have no idea how people who work with computers work. Looking stuff up is always the first instinct. When you work all day, every day on a computer connected to the Internet, you learn to rely on the Internet a lot.

[rodster]

True. It's a possibility.

[printz]

Flesh420 said:

LMAO... A rocket scientist, that knows the inner-working of how data is stored on a hard-drive, googles how to delete files so forensics doesn't find it.

That's just flat silly.

Only if Carmack was willingly committing crime would leaving trails for the forensics be 'silly'.

[Linguica]

I missed this at the time, but there's been an update to the saga, which will undoubtedly go through endless appeals: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-27/facebook-oculus-virtual-reality-stolen-tech-damages-are-halved

 

Quote

Facebook Inc. won a ruling that halved a jury’s $500 million verdict against its Oculus unit for using computer code in its virtual reality headset that was taken from another company.

 

U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade in Dallas also on Wednesday rejected ZeniMax Media Inc.’s request that he ban sales of Oculus headsets.

 

ZeniMax sued shortly after Facebook acquired Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion. ZeniMax claimed it was responsible for key breakthroughs in the development of software and hardware for the headset, only to be betrayed when one of its star employees, John Carmack, joined with two other entrepreneurs and stole ZeniMax’s intellectual property for their startup.

 

Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has said that the company’s bet on virtual reality as the next big computing platform will take years to pay off. Currently, the headsets are mostly popular among video game players -- not the mainstream.

 

Kinkeade affirmed the jury’s February 2017 award of $200 million for breach of contract and $50 million for copyright infringement. He wiped out the other $250 million awarded by jurors, including the damages against Oculus co-founders Brendan Iribe and Palmer Luckey.

 

A ZeniMax lawyer argued at a hearing a year ago that the Facebook unit was continuing to infringe its copyrights and “a permanent injunction is the only way to stop it.” Oculus argued that a sales ban would place an unfair hardship on the company, its business partners and customers. The judge sided with Oculus.

 

Oculus contended that the copyright infringement wasn’t “substantial” and that damages should be thrown out. The company said just seven lines of computer code in Oculus software were copied literally from ZeniMax “out of approximately 42 billion lines” introduced as evidence at trial.

 

ZeniMax said it’s pleased to have won $250 million -- plus $54 million in interest -- and disappointed that the jury verdict was cut in half.

 

“Based on a strong evidentiary record, the jury in this case found that ZeniMax was seriously harmed by the defendants’ theft of ZeniMax’s breakthrough VR technology and its verdict reflected that harm,” the company said in a statement, adding that it’s weighing next steps.

 

Paul Grewal, Facebook vice president and deputy general counsel, said the court’s ruling “was a positive step toward a fair resolution, and we will be appealing the remaining claims.”

 

“We’ve said from day one the ZeniMax case is deeply flawed, and today the court agreed,” Grewal said in a statement. “Our commitment to Oculus is unwavering and we will continue to invest in building the future of VR.”

 

The case is ZeniMax Media Inc. v. Oculus VR Inc., 3:14-cv-01849, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Dallas).

 

[HeyItsDuke]

I really think Zenimax is corrupt. Like, really corrupt. Not Facebook corrupt. but really corrupt.

[wheresthebeef]

Nothing has updated yet on the Carmack vs. Zenimax case, has it?

[kb1]

Zenimax should be ashamed. Instead, the execs are snorting 7 lines of... code? ... off each other's asses.

 

Never sell out, kids.

[ImpieEyez95]

Finally an update to this: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/12/facebook-settles-virtual-reality-lawsuit-with-zenimax.html

[Gez]

Quote

The results of the agreement were not disclosed, but ZeniMax's CEO stated, "We are pleased that a settlement has been reached and are fully satisfied by the outcome." On the Facebook side of things, a PR spokesperson simply said that the company was happy to put the issue behind them and move on.

I'm going to infer that the side that is "fully satisfied by the outcome" won, while the side that is merely "happy to put the issue behind and move on" lost.

[Linguica]

Facebook was already on the hook for $250 million to Zenimax for stealing their tech (plus at least an extra $50 million in interest on top of that), so I assume the settlement was for somewhat less than $300 million.

[kb1]

You know, John Carmack gives away his tech for free, as knowledge that everyone deserves to be able to benefit from. So, this is a double-whammy for John. I think it stinks, but that's the way the world works.