Zenimax suing FB claiming Oculus IP theft

And John Carmack is in the middle of the whole thing. This should get messy.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...al-reality-foray-challenged-as-fanciful-story

 

Oculus just can't catch a break, huh? This is like the second allegation of theft involving them, isn't it?

 

Wait... Did anyone ever believe that Luckey invented anything? I followed Oculus from the start of the Kickstarter and my impression was that he was super into VR and managed to get this going, but that the actual brains behind the Rift's technilogy was other people. I thought that Luckey was just really well-versed in VR headsets and was able to say what was needed, but not how to do it.

 

ZeniMax basically sues anyone related to Carmack and VR because he did some VR work Pre-Oculus and they think his head knowledge is their property.

 

From the entry for him on Wikipedia I'm left with the impression that he actually did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Luckey

 

I don't doubt that he experimented... But did he actually manage anything worthwhile? That just sounds like typical spin to me.

Still, I'll grant that it's more than I thought he did, so maybe they did try to give the impression that he invented things (true or not), and I just missed it.

 

There are some articles about how Luckey got going with his VR stuff, but basically he wanted to make VR happen because he really wanted to and he knew someone was going to do it eventually anyway. IIRC he had already met Carmack at some conference or something? (as a fanboy) and I think that's where a lot of controversy came from. Either way, he made his garage prototype and showed it to Abrash and it took off from there and they later brought on some high profile tech guys including Carmack who was apparently working on some private VR stuff already which is why Zenimax is all pissy and thinks he basically took all his work to Oculus.

 

This lawsuit could go either way. Facebook and ZeniMax are both huge and have excellent legal teams. ZeniMax bought id Software in 2009 and acquired Carmack during that deal. In 2013, Carmack left ZeniMax to take the CTO job at Oculus. Between those two points in time, there was some collaboration between ZeniMax and Oculus on VR. It is going to be an interesting case to watch. I would not be surprised if ZeniMax managed to receive some kind of settlement in this case.

I have always been a little skeptical about the story of Oculus. I view Carmack as one of the smartest programmers on the planet, so I was skeptical that a 17 year old kid (Luckey) had managed to nail the VR tech so well that Carmack would go work for him. But I do not personally know either person, so I really have no idea what actually happened.

 

Could end up the other way, Facebook taking over control of Bethesda. That would suck imo.

** ZeniMax is parent co of Bethesda.

 

That would be a very interesting turn of events. I don't think there is any risk of that happening.

 

Isn't it the same one being re-reported? I've definitely heard most of the things in that link before. I think it's just come up again because of juror selection or something.

 

they had those vr goggles in like 1991 ... they just needed better computers and better display technology

they really didnt do anything special if you ask me, just steal ideas
but my view on stealing ideas is that if an idea exists, its humanity's property

... i mean, sure you can own your own ideas, but youre a jerk to keep it to yourself, and if your idea is amazing and .. idk saves lives, people should come after you and take your idea, dont be selfish!!
... but problems arise with capitalism or something... ugh .. going too far now.. lol whatever..

people that like hack medical secrets are HEROES and should be rewarded by government!!
i think thats an indisputable fact

 

Go check out the YouTube comments section. There is no such thing as an undisptutable fact anymore.

In reality a lot comes down to where you country and government sits on the tech scale. In a developing nation, stealing tech makes sense and is applaudable. It's how pretty much every nation got started.

However when you are on top, there is no one else to steal from. And a government that incentivises stealing tech disincentivises innovation. And that's the last thing you want to do when your economy is on top.

 

if those people's personal incentive is monetary gain,
they shouldnt be involved in that kind of work

BOOM!! PWNED

what kind of silly joke of a concept is "money" anyway?
its a psych manipulation system created by despots to incentivize monkey minded people to be slaves.

 

So no one should be involved in that kind of work? There are very, very few people who have both the skills needed to develop new tech, and don't need money from their work.

When you have developed technologies that change the world, you can give them away for free. I won't stand in your way. I on the other hand need to eat and feed my family. I'm well equipped to help solve some big problems, like world hunger. But that doesn't help mean anything if my family goes hungry.

Altruism is a nice idea. But it doesn't put food on the table.

 

hahaha yeah iam just really frustrated at stuff right now haha
... it just sucks the instances where people are screwing people over for money lol
and it seems like money is all about screwing people over and nothing else..

 

Its all a matter of perspective. Yes it sucks that people are screwed over for money, or lack there of. On the other hand its great that there are people that world over searching for solutions to some incredibly difficult problems.

I'm not nice enough to save the world, and few people are. But I just might be greedy enough to do it.

I'm not arguing for unrestrained capitalism, far from it. But unrestrained socialism can be just as dangerous.

 

The only reason you are even reading this text on your computer screen is because someone was greedy and pursued profit opportunity.

Making a world a better place for free sounds nice on paper, but in reality money is what makes things happen, like it or not.

 

true, but it shouldnt, and it takes people with (bravery)? to make it happen

 

Bravery? Or insanity? My first thoughts when reading your posts were about Richard Stallman. There is no such thing as being normal in my opinion but at the same time RMS is a bit further from it than most people are. Yet even RMS needs funds to live the life he does. He's just fortunate that he's able to make them without violating his own beliefs.

 

I could be as brave as I want, and give away all sorts of interesting secrets.

But then what do I eat for dinner? Where do I live? Being brave doesn't make starvation and poverty any more pleasant.

 

ZeniMax won this round.

http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/1/14442212/facebook-oculus-zenimax-vr-lawsuit-verdict-palmer-luckey

 

A half a billion for breaking an NDA. Damn.

 

Man, ZeniMax looks ruthless. Even their ending comments are like 'oh nah, we aint done yet'.

 

It looks like ZeniMax lost almost the entire case but still ended up with $500 million or one quarter of the purchase price of Oculus. I don't see how they can stop Rift sales base on what little they did win. Luckey and Irbe got hit hard. I bet that the $500 million gets reduced on appeal.

 

Some comments from John Carmack

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1913546895546485&id=100006735798590

 

If it went down like it's being described here, that's crazy, and I too strongly wonder why a "distinguished academic" and/or (computer) science expert would use such language, and also why it was able to go unchallenged in court. It's almost as bad as claiming that something has been "proved" outside of pure mathematics. And Carmack's account sounds authentic to me, since the feelings he describes (in the paragraph before) are exactly what I think I'd feel in the same circumstances.

[Edit after further reading.]

It's also absurd that the expert witness's testimony is "sealed" and not available to public scrutiny. That doesn't at all sound to me like a situation designed to expose the truth.

To clarify, I'm not saying the resulting decision is wrong, I have no idea.

Was that their intent?

 

Anyone else find this interesting - non-literal copying?

From Gamasutra -
"The plaintiff’s expert that said Oculus’s implementations of the techniques at issue were 'non-literally copied' from the source code I wrote while at Id Software," he wrote.

"This is just not true. The authors at Oculus never had access to the Id C++ VR code, only a tiny bit of plaintext shader code from the demo. I was genuinely interested in hearing how the paid expert would spin a web of code DNA between completely unrelated codebases."

For context, non-literal copying refers to a type of infringement where a program's primary functions are reproduced using different code.


Wonder if this could be considered copying mechanics in the future - if it sets a president?

 

That is what they are threatening: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017...-try-to-stop-oculus-from-selling-vr-headsets/

I'm sure it is just a ploy to try and get more money from Oculus and Facebook.

 

Zenimax responded to John Carmack

 

Analyst breakdown of the findings.

Edit : Oops fixed link

Also,

UPDATE: Zenimax has responded to Carmack's criticisms, and has offered the following statement to Gamasutra:

"In addition to expert testimony finding both literal and non-literal copying, Oculus programmers themselves admitted using Zenimax’s copyrighted code (one saying he cut and pasted it into the Oculus SDK), and [Oculus VR co-founder] Brendan Iribe, in writing, requested a license for the 'source code shared by Carmack' they needed for the Oculus Rift. Not surprisingly, the jury found Zenimax code copyrights were infringed. The Oculus Rift was built on a foundation of Zenimax technology."

"As for the denial of wiping, the Court’s independent expert found 92 percent of Carmack’s hard drive was wiped—all data was permanently destroyed, right after Carmack got notice of the lawsuit, and that his affidavit denying the wiping was false. Those are the hard facts."

 

Your link doesn't go to anything.

 

Honestly couldn't care less about big boy money games. You know what this does? It makes me think nobody has their S*** together. I'm supposed to be impressed by either side?

 

I've been told decisions setting a precedent only happens with any regularity (in the US) from decisions made by the Supreme and Circuit courts, very infrequently at the level of the District court system, and never from lower courts.

I bet it would be a lot more interesting if you were 75% of the way through a big Oculus project! I'm still not sold on the long-term viability of VR, but a serious attempt to take down the biggest player in the field seems pretty relevant to the current gaming world to me.

 

Encourages you to buy the Vive?

 

Certainly, that would make him (or me) pay more attention to this silly bashing between Zenimax and Occulus.

But pretty relevant? VR? To the CURRENT gaming world? No.

It might be pretty relevant once the technology matures, enters the mainstream, and the hype clouding the true outlook of the VR genre is gone. If that would happen in 10 years. Damn, quite relevant to gaming at large, altough I still question if VR will be a big part of gaming or just another niche by then.

Today? Its just some early adopters 600 bucks, and some early adopter devs projects at risk. Maybe a good reminder to never get wedded to a single platform or platform holder too much. If Wii U wasn't enough of a warning already.
Move over to the Vive, or PSVR, or both, if Occulus goes belly up. Which it most probably will not yet, unless Zenimax is really out to destroy them, and Facebook is not willing anymore to pay them more and more for keeping Occulus alive.


Well, IMO, the whole thing stinks on both ends. I don't trust Occulus to having invented ANYTHING given how convinient a lot of things fell into place, Carmack might be a brilliant programmer, but BECAUSE hes a techy and not a bean counter or law bender, he certainly will make mistakes when it comes to IP and stuff like that.
I have never been such a fan of Luckey, seemed to me he would do anything to make his "vision" a reality, including selling out to FB.
I don't trust Facebook or Zuckerberg for that matter. As much as you hear the "built on stolen IP/Code/hardware" BS for every major tech company in the world, I do believe it when it comes to Facebook. And more importantly, that company would do ANYTHING to make some quick bucks, including trying to manipulate their users.

On the other hand, the way Zenimax is coming out of the woodwork when serious money is made with their "stolen technology" is also not making them look very good. Could be that this is just how long it takes for the court to kick into high gear and get going, given that Zenimax was complaining about Carmack being appointed as CTO of Occulus for a long time.
Still, they look like they just want a part of the cake now that money is being made.

Well, meh. I don't care either way how this works out. I would MAYBE if I spent 600 bucks for an Occulus headset. But things like that are why I usually don't early adopt....

 

...which is exactly why I prefaced my comment with my doubts about the long-term viability of VR. Long-term vs current, I feel it has relevance now ... in the future, probably not so much, either because VR turns into the Kinect-style forgotten "gee that seemed cool at the time" technology of the 2010s, or it matures and catches on and all these early companies fade into a flood of barely-usable but cheap headsets from China.

 

Yeh I'm of the opinion that JC did break NDA while working at Oculus, he should get out and pursue some other field of interest like rocket science gardening ...something where he's less likely to be involved in a lawsuit again.

And it has got the conniving mind of Mark #uckerberg et al behind it, incentivizing the progress to be made with the tech, with a family history of stealing and lying which hasn't been completely wiped from history... so color me not surprised that ran off on JC.. only this time Zenimax fights back...so zero ducks given for fakebook. Zenimax should go do something useful with that 500m though, perhaps some better games

 

I don't think it will fade. It is hard to predict the future, and I get the comparison with Kinect - but Kinect "failed" for several reasons. It takes up a lot of space, and it was largely gimmicky. It has some cool applications, sure, but you still need the right app and the right amount of space. It rode on the same wave as the Wii controllers, basically.
VR is facing some of the same challenges. I get how awesome room scale games are, but they are also very limiting. I firmly believe that studios need to design their games for both room scale and sitting/standing, because room scale only will eliminate a lot of the user base. Space is probably the most costly part of getting VR. I am barely able to get a 2,5m x 1,5m space going at home, and I have to move furniture around. Sure, I do live in an appartment in Copenhagen, and if I one day decide to seek out fresh air further away from the city, I'll be sure to prioritize a gaming space for VR - but a lot of people probably never will. I am not sure we will see a mainstream application for years, but I do believe that VR has a lot to offer.

 

That's a pretty dark outlook on everything.

 

I didn't mean to imply VR would fail for any of the reasons Kinect was a flop, just that Kinect might be a failed-tech poster-child for the 2010s, and I'm of the opinion that VR is doomed to a similar fate. I believe most people hate sitting around wearing a blindfold, even if that blindfold has pretty pictures on the inside. That being said, I do expect AR to take off at some point (HoloLens-style, not faking it like Pokemon Go). My guess is either VR will have already died out by then, or AR will be the nail in the coffin.

 

I don't really believe AR will ever replace VR or be the doom of it. Personally I would even say it's apples and oranges between AR/VR as the content and how its used has so big difference between the two.

 

The way I see it, AR is to VR what casual mobile gamers are to hardcore PC gamers. AR will drive the mainstream industry, but I think VR will be one of those things that is proclaimed to be 'on its way out' for a long, long time. Meaning, it's going to be enjoyed a lot by a certain niche of hardcore gamers and enthusiasts who will keep it alive, and who may in fact end up succeeding in making it a mainstream thing, if and when some practical hurdles are overcome.

It's telling that the most funded kickstarter game to date is one that is basically geared toward a relatively small subset of hardcore gamers who have high-end machines and are interested in a niche genre (first-person space combat) that has been pronounced dead multiple times. I think this might also apply to VR, where there may be hardcore gamers who want to totally immerse themselves in VR and will spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on any initiative that seems like it will make it happen in a practical way, even if we don't get there for a decade or more.

 

That's an interesting take, but I just don't see any reason the eventual end-game consumer-friendly AR shouldn't be expected to do double-duty as full-blackout VR when the user so desires. In other words, I see VR as (eventually) a subset of AR functionality.

Yes, today they're certainly apples-and-oranges, people have been taking shots at VR since the 1950s, but AR has only become reasonably attainable within maybe the past decade at most. Everyone is still trying to figure out AR, so of course it's something separate... for now.

 

For the same reasons that no device can do double-duty as a mobile phone and a gaming desktop. They're too divergent in terms of the end-use and the equipment that each of these uses requires. For example, hypothetically an ideal solution for VR might include a full-body haptic suit or something like that, which people are unlikely to want to use everywhere they go.

 

I see your point with Hololens styled AR, and that is certainly going to get big. Probably bigger than VR. I don't think it will replace it though. VR has a deeper, more immersive experience, but it is still very clunky. AR is lighter, but it is also just a layer on the existing world. It will be big in regards to social media and some games, but people will still want to dive into space without outside distraction. Once we get comfortable and affordable devices I think VR will really take off - and it is not that far away, looking at how fast technology is going. My guess is that we at some point won't distinguish between AR and VR devices, but simply have devices that can do both.

 

Well as far as I know Sony's effort is reaching more people, and Vive is better quality.

VR is currently in the age of steam. It'll pick up when headsets aren't absolutely stupid or full body suits, since pornhub wants in, no doubt.

 

Well, true.

One might say, if we ignore the fact that a lot of the current "relevance" of VR is driven by pure hype, no matter how good, or bad the technology currently is, VR is the poster boy for future gaming technologies at the moment.


Still, it not like Occulus is the only company producing VR Headsets at the moment. I think the Vive is already pretty equivalent in the PC Space, and given VR is here to stay, I expect the usual suspects among the PC peripheral producers to come out with their own take on the VR Headset pretty soon. And I expect them to match or surpass Occulus on a Hardware/tech level quite easely given Occulus is lacking their expertise in producing quality hardware.

If anything, this just shows how flawed Occulus idea of creating a platform instead of just a piece of hardware is for the software developers. If Occulus would adhere to an open standart other VR Headset manufacturers would agree to, you could safely develop your VR application knowing that it will run on ANY VR Headset for that platform (the PC in this case) out there... if one of those early hardware producers go belly up or gets out of the VR game (which, lets be honest, is a high probability until the market matures, which it is years away from most probably), at least the developer would know that his application or game would still be accessible by customers with different VR Goggles, or that the Occulus Goggles continue to work as they are just a piece of hardware.

Now everything is tightly linked to Occulus fate, if they go belly up or facebook gives up on them, the whole "platform" might go with them. What happens to the games released for it? Will Zenimax be able to get a hold over the "platform" with some support from the law?


THAT is the one and only reason why this whole thing might be relevant to about anyone. Without it, one of many VR Goggles out of the market. No big deal. Not like Occulus did much, besides being overly aggressive in persisting on VR being just around the corner when everyone else seemed to have a way more relaxed stance.
Which got us nice, but flawed 1st gen devices ready for early adoption. Job done. Occulus can now go belly up, as I don't expect them to be a big driving factor in developing real mass market devices out of these early prototypes anymore, now that Facebook has leverage over them.

I expect way more good things from HTC/Valve or Sony than from Occulus/Facebook when it comes to gaming VR Tech. These companies have way more stakes in the gaming market than Occulus/Facebook.


Now, I am interested in how Zenimax wants to proceed in this space after it is finished with Occulus. Given Vive and PSVR at least borrowed some ideas from Occulus, will Zenimax try to force some licensing schemes upon HTC or Sony? I guess they lack the leverage to do so really, but will they try, given they can make an example out of the Occulus case?

 

https://www.khronos.org/vr

https://www.khronos.org/news/press/khronos-announces-vr-standards-initiative

BTW the name is Oculus

 

Soooo... basically I could develop for the open standart, and the oculus goggles (A, didn't knew about the name) would support that?

Why then even think about developing for the oculus "platform" they are trying to build up?