Comment by DerpDerpDerp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DerpDerpDerp | Hacker News Reader

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> Their behavior is not unreasonable, but it is only possible because a prolific developer was not concerned about nuances of copyright law while collaborating with multiple companies.

I expect that Facebook is going to tell Oculus to suck it up, pay a settlement, and everyone will go home and move on with their lives.

Carmac worked on Oculus at id's office, during work hours, using id resources. Oculus promoted their product using id games. At every step, id (and hence ZeniMax) provided technical assistance.

Oculus didn't want to pay for it by reaching a deal as they moved forward to commercializing, so now they're going to reach one as part of a settlement resolving a lawsuit.

Really, this doesn't strike me as a particularly bad case, and reading their lawsuit filing, not inappropriate for them to file a lawsuit after failing to have a settlement reached with Oculus to pay for the technology.

(As an aside, there is other IP than just copyright involved.)

So, there's a whole host of problems with this line of reasoning.

What we do as engineers, especially in software development, shouldn't be treated with the same reasoning as you'd seen in an assembly line.

First, note that Carmack was a cofounder of id; a good chunk of his precedent and history was doing exactly this sort of research work. Does Zenimax want to go back and claim ownership of his contributions to graphics cards manufacturers for his help with their drivers and APIs?

Second, note that at a high level, it simply doesn't make sense to have an engineer not working on R&D in fields outside of what the current core line of business is. Especially in a AAA studio, a lot of that work is either art or scripting or quashing bugs--a workload which is honestly a total waste of senior engineer talent. They enjoyed the fruits of this labor; consider the extra sales of Doom 3 BFG whose improvements were driven partially by this work with Oculus.

Third, Zenimax wasn't and isn't in the business of making hardware, and only now seemed to give a shit following the Facebook acquisition. This is so transparently a cash-grab that I'm kind of surprised you are being generous at all on this.

~

Look, I don't know about you, but I'd rather not live in a world where my employer effectively owns everything I do while drawing a salary there, and can make a claim on everything I work on hence, regardless of whether it makes any logical sense or not.

Further, I don't think it's good that you can spend twenty years building a business (industry, more honestly) and then have some asshole suits screw you out of what should by right be a fun working semi-retirement. It's like spitting in the face of engineering's American Dream.

ZeniMax was working on VR technologies before Carmack began interacting with Oculus, and has a reasonable claim to the fruits of his work on that (being that it was an assigned R&D project).

Do you really think I should (for example) be allowed to develop a new plastic in an R&D position as part of my duties at a chemical company, and then simply give the research over to a competitor because it strikes my fancy?

If Carmack wanted to retain control over his IP, or not work under the (pretty reasonable) IP assignment clause, he should have not sold the company or not stayed working there.

The fact is ZeniMax has several good claims: Oculus used id IP to promote their product (games), used products of id's (under ZeniMax) research in to VR, and so on.

First, note that Carmack was a cofounder of id; a good chunk of his precedent and history was doing exactly this sort of research work.

Which was (part of) the portfolio Zenimax was buying into when they acquired id. Zenimax spent about $105 million on that deal, of which Carmack presumably received a large chunk as a co-owner of the company. They put down fat money to own id and the IP that came out there.

Further, I don't think it's good that you can spend twenty years building a business (industry, more honestly) and then have some asshole suits screw you out of what should by right be a fun working semi-retirement. It's like spitting in the face of engineering's American Dream.

How are they screwing him? He could have just quit ID and gone to work on Oculus once he decided that that was the most exciting thing, it's not like he was depending on a biweekly paycheck from Zenimax to keep a roof over his head and put diapers on the baby. Nobody forced him to sell id to ZeniMax, I presume he and his partners did so because they all got very rich in the process.

>Carmac worked on Oculus at id's office, during work hours, using id resources. Oculus promoted their product using id games. At every step, id (and hence ZeniMax) provided technical assistance.

He also worked from home, on weekends, and from hotel, when he wants to be uninterrupted. Who knows if he billed (his own, historically) company for that? The point is, he really didn't have to, and ZeniMax is playing a 'gotcha' game.

>Really, this doesn't strike me as a particularly bad case, and reading their lawsuit filing, not inappropriate for them to file a lawsuit after failing to have a settlement reached with Oculus to pay for the technology.

I agree, they probably have a decent case, but it's not any less sad to see.

> He also worked from home, on weekends, and from hotel, when he wants to be uninterrupted. Who knows if he billed (his own, historically) company for that? The point is, he really didn't have to, and ZeniMax is playing a 'gotcha' game.

Not true. See my previous question and discussion on this topic at the link below. If you sign a contract with a large company which has a clause that they own ip you create while working for them belongs to them (which is very common), you are out of luck.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7589822

You are indeed out of luck if you sign such a contract, which is why it's so important to refuse to sign any such contract. If you're hard up for money (been there), it might seem crazy to risk not getting a job by complaining about the contract you're about to sign, but trust me, the employers are usually more than happy to carve out a clause for you. They want you working for them more than they want to assert dominance over you.

See my other reply for page cites and details, but it seems that ZeniMax was actively pursuing VR technology and that Carmac was part of that project prior to his work on Oculus.

If I work for money developing a certain kind of technology, it's reasonable for my employer to think I won't give my work project over to another company and that they have some claim to that technology.

Well, this is the first I hear of ZeniMax actively pursuing VR. I'm curious to know what you're basing this on. From what John Carmac said, he has personally been interested in VR since 90s, not ZeniMax.

The thing is, we can't talk legalese and English at the same time. By law, ZeniMax might own everything and its history, if they own 51% of it. But by causality, they might have played no part in its creation. This is why they might have a legal case, (unless they did, in fact, instigated VR R&D, as opposed to just buy share of [id]) but they don't have my goodwill.

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