Zenimax v Oculus Raging with Carmack

Carmack said, “I copied files that I shouldn’t have. I think stealing is an uncharitable way to look at it since I didn’t benefit and ZeniMax didn’t lose, but I shouldn’t have done it, and I did.”

Maybe I'm not reading this correctly. However it seems an awful lot like what people pirating software argues. Maybe more so if someone downloaded a game and then said it sucked. They say I wouldn't have bought it anyway so they didn't benefit and the developer isn't out anything. I think it comes down to possession and intent.
 
Carmack said, “I copied files that I shouldn’t have. I think stealing is an uncharitable way to look at it since I didn’t benefit and ZeniMax didn’t lose, but I shouldn’t have done it, and I did.”

Maybe I'm not reading this correctly. However it seems an awful lot like what people pirating software argues. Maybe more so if someone downloaded a game and then said it sucked. They say I wouldn't have bought it anyway so they didn't benefit and the developer isn't out anything. I think it comes down to possession and intent.

There's a difference between a random customer taking something that's not theirs and an employee taking something that's no theirs. The latter is treated far more seriously, as it can have a much greater financial impact on the company.
 
LOL Rage. This is still the best review of the game:


ShuttleLuv said:
I feel scammed. Fucking scammed. John Carmack.....why? You just lost every ounce of your elite status as a game programmer. This game is shit, plain and simple.

Visually, one of the worst looking games that has come out in 7 years. Far Cry looks better than this. This game has the worst texture pop in, textures (we're talking Quake 2 / Sin quality, possibly low end Quake 3 here) I have seen yet on a modern game. Doom 3 is visually and gameplay wise superior to this game in every aspect. Absolutely no HDR or lighting, nothing modern. The desert has no shadows, nothing casts shadows it's all static.

OMFG.I am so pissed. I spent $60 on this hunk of dog shit when money is tight. NEVER again. Gaming on this very night, the 4th of October, has died. Gaming is dead, long live the king. The game has no direction, no compelling storyline, visuals that reek, terrible mouse controls, no console, no tweakablity. What the fucking fuck is this and how did it get past John Carmack's brain? Too much cell phone programming. I actually cannot force myself to load it back up, it's THAT bad.

This game aint got shit on Duke Nukem Forever. I'm just awe struck. I told my nephew tonight gaming has died. The true pc gaming is dead forever, fuck your texture packs, fuck your patches. This is a Xbox 360 game ported sneakily to look like a pc game. It's a wolf in sheeps clothing. No goddamn excuse that having a sandy at 5 ghz, 12 gigs of ram, and a GTX 480 @ 580 with 1.5 gb of ram looks like this. I want my $60 back motherfucker!
 
He took files that belong to ZeniMax. I have been on civil jury cases. Guilty is my vote.

It's a civil damages case, it's not about guilty or not guilty :) The majority of what has to be determined here is whether he should pay damages, and if so, how much.
 
Lost but won since they cleared them of stealing any IP. $500M << $4B They'll drag it out with more appeals before paying anything of course.
 
Lost but won since they cleared them of stealing any IP. $500M << $4B They'll drag it out with more appeals before paying anything of course.

which I am trying to wrap my head around that one, they didn't use any trade secrets but they infringed on their copyright... That sounds like a battle of words to me. I didn't steal that car, I just borrowed it without the owners permission with no expectations of giving it back.

The best I can gather is that the ruling is saying that they did use some of Zenimax's code / technology but that it was not by means of setting out with the intent of stealing it, or something like that. So similar to the difference between murder and manslauder I guess.

They might not have gotten all the money they asked for, but they at least got something. Until a few appeals go through that is. Which I have never fully agreed with. I don't think you should be able to keep asking for a do over with a case because you don't like the outcome. Double jeopardy should apply to more things. You can't say that you aren't happy with a criminal case and retry it over and over with different juries till you get the result you want. You shouldn't be able to do the same with civil cases. I think that there should need to be some type of new information or proof of some major error to even be considered instead of "I don't like the ruling against me so I want this ruled on again". To many business are able to use this to get out of paying money.
 
Appeals, in both criminal and civil cases, are not "redos" of the case. An appeal court can only look at procedural errors that have been preserved on the record. A lot of people don't understand that appellate courts are not able to look at a case and reverse a decision or hear new evidence. They can only look at the objections that were made and decide whether those objections were appropriate if the court violated a procedural rule. Then an appellate court decides whether the error made a material difference in the judgement (e.g., ok, so you were found guilty of stealing the thing based on this one person's testimony. We rule the court erred in allowing his testimony. But we also find that even without his testimony, you would have still been found guilty). It's an extremely difficult threshold and one of the many reasons cases are rarely overturned on direct appeal.

In this civil case, an appeal of the judgement would be based on whether $500m was out of statutory bounds and could be reduce, but the appellate court wouldn't hear new testimony about the case and it won't review whether the judgement should have been rewarded at all (although, if there was a procedural error, and that procedural error was properly objected to, that is "preserved," on the record, and it was related to something like whether the court had jurisdiction over the case in the first place or something of that nature, the appellate court could overturn the case in its entirety). What you might find is that one party might offer a sum of money to shut down the appeals process since it can take years. Those undisclosed, negotiated sums, often are reported inaccurately as judgement amounts.
 
I think what happened was Palmer didn't keep to the letter of the NDA and they kept some Zenimax copyright code around, likely DOOM3 or Rage demos, that either they shouldn't have had in the first place or should have deleted at some point.

The big verdict however was that none of the Zenimax code (or technology) was used for anything in the Rift, which was what their main complaint was at first.

The appeal is likely around some obscure legal codes about how much they should be liable for the copyright violations. There is a real chance the jurors got bad guidance or didn't understand it and that is the grounds. Who knows, not a lawyer. I have served on a jury in a civil trial in Texas and we had a LOT of leeway in what, if anything, to award. Some of the guidelines were easy to understand but it depends on how well the lawyers and judge translate it from the legalese, and I bet this case was far more complex. Some of it was down to us getting 10 of the 12 to agree on the amount so we could leave.
 
Zenimax better use some of that money to make some singleplayer Doom content now.
 
Appeals, in both criminal and civil cases, are not "redos" of the case. An appeal court can only look at procedural errors that have been preserved on the record. A lot of people don't understand that appellate courts are not able to look at a case and reverse a decision or hear new evidence. They can only look at the objections that were made and decide whether those objections were appropriate if the court violated a procedural rule. Then an appellate court decides whether the error made a material difference in the judgement (e.g., ok, so you were found guilty of stealing the thing based on this one person's testimony. We rule the court erred in allowing his testimony. But we also find that even without his testimony, you would have still been found guilty). It's an extremely difficult threshold and one of the many reasons cases are rarely overturned on direct appeal.

In this civil case, an appeal of the judgement would be based on whether $500m was out of statutory bounds and could be reduce, but the appellate court wouldn't hear new testimony about the case and it won't review whether the judgement should have been rewarded at all (although, if there was a procedural error, and that procedural error was properly objected to, that is "preserved," on the record, and it was related to something like whether the court had jurisdiction over the case in the first place or something of that nature, the appellate court could overturn the case in its entirety). What you might find is that one party might offer a sum of money to shut down the appeals process since it can take years. Those undisclosed, negotiated sums, often are reported inaccurately as judgement amounts.

I meant redo in that you are completely ignoring the ruling of the first case and getting a second one to any degree. I don't care if they reduce the $500M down to $490M. That is still the first ruling being ignored and being decided to be wrong in the judgement. We see it all the time, somebody is awarded X amount of money and instead of the other party paying out they appeal and the amount gets reduced. Or like you said it gets carried on for so long that one side finally folds.

I still don't think that you should be able to just say that I don't like that lost and have to pay money there for I want to appeal this case. I still think there should need to be some concrete reason. This is what allows companies to get away with fucking people over as even if they lose in court they will just appeal to keep things going until you say fuck it and give up. Sure this case is about two people to which $500M is about like an average person looking at $50K. But what about when you have a person hurt badly at work due to a unsafe work condition who can't collect the money because of the company using appeals to avoid paying out settlements? And then when they don't like the results of that second ruling they just don't pay and nothing ever happens. It is far to easy for a company to say, I don't like the ruling and refuse to accept it.
 
Zenimax better use some of that money to make some singleplayer Doom content now.

or maybe they can get ID to actually make a new game instead of just making the same one over and over again. Can't wait for the 2020 reboot of Doom, but that won't be as good as 2026 reboot of Doom.
 
I still think there should need to be some concrete reason. This is what allows companies to get away with fucking people over as even if they lose in court they will just appeal to keep things going until you say fuck it and give up.
It's not true that someone can appeal for the hell of it. I explained to you that you must have a concrete reason, you must preserve that concrete reason on the record, (both must be true before you can file an appeal) and then the appeal court has to determine that the error was material (after the appeal is filed).

I also didn't fully explain the point about one side folding. That doesn't mean they get less money (one of the reasons I said the monetary awards are erroneously reported). They still get the judgement but the losing side offers additional settlement money to resolve the case and seal it with a non-disclosure (so the details can't be discussed, for example) and/or because appeals can go both ways (the appellate court could revise the amount higher and conclude it should have been 800M, for example). In a situation like that, they get the 500M + whatever the settlement offer is, it's not in lieu of the judgement.

Regardless, courts don't look kindly on frivolous appeals that tie the court. Most judgements, even with preserved errors, are simply stamped AWOP (affirmed without opinion). Courts adjudicate millions of cases yet you've heard of maybe a handful, which is one indication of how rare the circumstance you are agitated over actually occurs.
 
or maybe they can get ID to actually make a new game instead of just making the same one over and over again. Can't wait for the 2020 reboot of Doom, but that won't be as good as 2026 reboot of Doom.

They can throw as many Dooms, Wolfensteins, RAGEs and Quakes at me as they want. Or Commander Keen Goes to Hell for that matter. :D Nobody makes a pure shooter like that the way id does. There are plenty of other companies to make other types and variations of games.
 
it seems 500mil won't stop them from pooping all over the walls...
 
It's not true that someone can appeal for the hell of it. I explained to you that you must have a concrete reason, you must preserve that concrete reason on the record, (both must be true before you can file an appeal) and then the appeal court has to determine that the error was material (after the appeal is filed).

I also didn't fully explain the point about one side folding. That doesn't mean they get less money (one of the reasons I said the monetary awards are erroneously reported). They still get the judgement but the losing side offers additional settlement money to resolve the case and seal it with a non-disclosure (so the details can't be discussed, for example) and/or because appeals can go both ways (the appellate court could revise the amount higher and conclude it should have been 800M, for example). In a situation like that, they get the 500M + whatever the settlement offer is, it's not in lieu of the judgement.

Regardless, courts don't look kindly on frivolous appeals that tie the court. Most judgements, even with preserved errors, are simply stamped AWOP (affirmed without opinion). Courts adjudicate millions of cases yet you've heard of maybe a handful, which is one indication of how rare the circumstance you are agitated over actually occurs.

I think you are misunderstanding what I mean. I am not saying it can be appealed for the hell if it, but that they can file an appeal for the hell of it. Doesn't mean that it doesn't get rejected but it drags out any process. Case in point. A person had surgery that went wrong and caused nerve damage. They sued and won $1.5 million. Hospital appealed and it was found that the first judge let some stuff be heard that shouldn't have been and prevent other stuff that should been heard. Second trial went through and the jury awarded $1.45 million this time because a dr had already settled with him out of court for a few hundred thousand. Hospital appealed again. Appellate court said that they ruling was valid. So the hospital appealed a 3rd time still claiming a lack of legal evidence and a excessive payout amount. So they filed an appeal on the appeal. Regardless of it the appeal was actually looked at or just tossed into the recycle bin due to being trash doesn't mean that they didn't at least try.

and yes it might be rare, but you normally hear about it in the large suits because those are the ones that are all over the news. We all knew about Gawker's suit, but don't know anything about two neighbors suing each other over a fence dispute. We all know about Zennimax vs Oculus but don't know about the guy suing his landlord for not salting the sidewalk of an apartment building during a snow storm causing him to fall and break his leg. So sure we only hear of a small handful because of all the daily cases that are won every day we only know of an extremely small number
 
I think you are misunderstanding what I mean.
I understand what you are trying to say. I am explaining to you, as a law professor, that your understanding of the appeal process is not accurate. I'm not interested in repeating myself, though, so you can either believe what I've already explained or continue believing how you think the process works.
 
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