
John Carmack is suing ZeniMax - danso
https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/09/oculus-cto-john-carmack-is-suing-zenimax-for-22-5-million/
======
danm07
These types of things really irritate me. Corporate NDA agreements are total
shams.

We couldn't hire a P/T contractor because the engineer signed an NDA agreement
with his company that pretty much said everything he developed, verbalized, or
put to paper -- during work or after -- was IP of that company, irrespective
of whether it had anything to do with its products. Even as an employer, I
find this an absolute outrage.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
Engineers are the worst at this part of the game. They'll sign anything you
put in front of them. At several of the places I've worked, I've been given
crap boilerplate forms like that to sign. HR/hiring people will look at you
like you're some kind of weirdo if you balk at any of it. Here are the
reactions to my reluctance as I recall them.

* One company wouldn't budge. Later, I got a better deal, but it was risky the way I went about it. * At another company, I just didn't sign it. They didn't stop me from starting work but when the omission was noticed they had an HR person pester me about it a few times. They eventually gave up. * At yet another place, I crossed out the parts I didn't like. They just kind of shrugged and said okay.

At no time did I ever want anything unreasonable. I just didn't want all the
things that I or my descendants designed/built/invented/helped-whatever to be
assigned to ['company'] in perpetuity, etc. And I didn't want a contractual
responsibility to come and defend patents in courts, or give depositions at my
expense.

~~~
pc86
> _Engineers are the worst at this part of the game. They 'll sign anything
> you put in front of them._

The smart ones absolutely will not. Smart _people_ absolutely will not do
this, regardless of their profession.

~~~
fao_
But that's the ultimate cop-out. By sheer _definition_ smart people will not
do _anything_ stupid. They are utterly incapable of doing stupid things,
because then they wouldn't be _smart_. This is a wonderful tautology and a
beautiful way of saying absolutely nothing.

~~~
ReidZB
It's just a way of saying "doing X is stupid" without being blunt.

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kar1181
I feel like there needs to be a sequel or at least epilogue to masters of doom
when the dust finally settles on all this.

~~~
teej
If you're looking for something in the iterim, noclip produced a documentary
on the making of Doom (2016) that's pretty engaging. It briefly discusses the
Zenimax lawsuit but doesn't go deep into it.

~~~
eriknstr
DOOM Resurrected, Part 1 - To Hell & Back (DOOM Documentary) -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS6SBnccxMA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS6SBnccxMA)

DOOM Resurrected, Part 2 - Designing a First Impression (Doom Documentary) -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsoVQWnSOfM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsoVQWnSOfM)

DOOM Resurrected, Part 3 - Guns, Guitars & Chess on Mars (Doom Documentary) -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0nOsuaPDeg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0nOsuaPDeg)

I too recommend these.

Noclip also has a bunch of extended interviews that you can find on their
channel or in related videos but I haven't seen those so can't comment on
whether or not they are worth looking at.

~~~
KPLauritzen
The interview with Hugo Martin, the creative director of DOOM, is great -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVLecokaRv4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVLecokaRv4)

------
gpm
Original article which contains a copy of the complaint is available here [0].

Direct link to the complaint here [1].

[0]
[http://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/2017/03/09/leg...](http://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/2017/03/09/legal-
feud-over-facebook-owned-oculus-has-another-dallas-chapter)

[1] [https://www.scribd.com/document/341420632/John-Carmack-vs-
Ze...](https://www.scribd.com/document/341420632/John-Carmack-vs-ZeniMax-
Media#from_embed)

------
6stringmerc
I thought this was about the Oculus / NDA issue and it very much is not in the
legal sense, and I'm not really surprised to find out what the real situation
is in this case.

As Carmack's musing on Facebook pointed out, he didn't like the outcome but he
didn't have any grounding to factually dispute the NDA. So, tough as it may
be, they lost.

This is about getting what is owed in contracts. Essentially the opposite side
of the coin to an NDA (Can vs. Can't Do) and I hope he wins if he is truly
being ripped off.

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ChuckMcM
I find it interesting that ZeniMax wins 500M from Facebook where Carmack
works, and then Carmack sues Zenimax and if he wins gets $22M which one would
presume they would use some of the $500M for. It is kind of like getting $22M
from your own employer the long way around.

------
aresant
I bet that Zenimax will claim that due to the issues surrounding the Oculus
case Carmack failed the covenants required to collect his 50% earn out
mentioned in Carmack's complaint.

EDIT - Another commentor posted the original complaint and this is exactly why
Zenimax is not paying "ZeniMax’s stated basis for its failure to comply with
the Convertible Promissory Note is a series of allegations regarding claimed
violations of Mr. Carmack’s Employment Agreement and ZeniMax’s alleged
intellectual property rights."(1)

A jury of "peers" found Oculus at fault in several key areas in Zenimax's last
complaint, and Carmack was central in that story.

When Zenimax sued Oculus - the VR community responded with overwhelming
support for Oculus, casting Zenimax as the greedy corporation trying to get a
slice.

Zenimax's original complaint - of which a Jury saw enough truth in to award
$500m to Zenimax - is more or less as follows:

\- Zenimax bought ID software for >$100m on June 24, 2009.

\- Carmack signed up with Zenimax for an earn-out / golden-handcuffs agreement
that ended in June of 2013.

\- Carmack was enthralled with VR.

\- Carmack found Palmer via an internet forum, reached out to get a rift to
try.

\- Carmack tinkered with the Rift, adding sensors, building calibration, etc.
while on the clock / using hardware from zenimax.

\- Carmack brought a prototype of the Rift working on Doom 3 to E3 with him
providing Oculus with their early press.

\- Zenimax realized the extent to which Carmack was enabling Oculus and worked
to negotiate equity with Brendan Iribe.

\- Oculus sent Zenimax a proposal to discuss a partnership Sept 21, 2012 but
never followed up / followed through.

\- Carmack quit Zenimax the day his contract was up in June 2013, joined
Oculus as CTO a few months later and took his 5 best guys with him.

\- FB bought Oculus March 2014, Zenmix got pissed and sued.

When Zenimax responds to this new complaint from Carmack it's a foregone
conclusion that they will re-raise this "bad behavior" and likely point to
non-competitive clauses attached to the "earn out" as non-performing.

I love Carmack and his contributions to our world, I am concerned that Zenimax
may out lawyer him.

PS - Fun fact - two of Zenimax's board members are Cal Ripken, Jr. (hall of
fame baseball player) and Robert S. Trump - brother to our current president.

EDIT - Changed first sentence for clarity of my point.

(1) [https://www.scribd.com/document/341420632/John-Carmack-vs-
Ze...](https://www.scribd.com/document/341420632/John-Carmack-vs-ZeniMax-
Media#from_embed)

~~~
fizixer
I never got to Carmack level of technical seniority but in recent past I got
hired (this was my first experience in America) in a level-2 engineering
permanent position (assuming level-1 is for fresh BS graduates) and the
contract essentially stated that, unless I declare any prior obligations (I
didn't), all my creative work while I'm employed (including that on evenings
and weekends, related or unrelated to my job) is copyrighted (or owned, or
something similar, I don't remember the exact words) by my employer. I was
seriously taken aback but I didn't know what to do.

A few questions:

\- Is this standard practice?

\- How can you enjoy your weekend creative activities, and/or, use them for
your potential future startups, copyrights, patents, whatever, if you work
full-time under such a stringent condition? (can you even write a novel and
sell it, while you work full-time as a software engineer? or should you always
ask permission first?)

\- Is it likely that Carmack had similar obligations while he was at Zenimax?
In which case he very carelessly ignored them when he indulged in Oculus work.
(but then he also has his rocket hobby going on so I don't know how that
panned out in relationship to his employers, Zenimax, or FB).

\- This raises an important concern. As a typical employed engineer, we don't
pay much attention to the legal repurcussions of our employment. May be we (or
I) should not carry out any undertaking without consulting a lawyer
(specializing in these matters) first?

~~~
alberth
I highly recommend you read Joel Spolsky recent post on why exactly US based
companies do this.

[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-
pr...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-projects/)

It's highly informative.

~~~
wwalser
I respect Joel immensely. That said, I found his post strange in what it
leaves out. So much so that I wrote my own follow up.

[https://medium.com/@wwalser/re-developers-side-
projects-3ee3...](https://medium.com/@wwalser/re-developers-side-
projects-3ee3274f39fe#.vzp6lcp1r)

Basically, yes, it's standard practice but in every company that I've worked
for there have been escape hatches that were relatively easy to utilize. HR
usually has paperwork that both parties sign saying something along the lines
of "[developer] is going to build [thing] in their own time using their own
hardware. We grant [developer] the legal right to maintain ownership of
[thing]".

I pay a lot of attention to what I'm signing. My side projects are important
to me. They're a part of my lifestyle. I think most devs could very
comfortably sign without a second thought. On the whole, state and contract
law in the US combine to create a fairly good safety net for avoiding truly
abhorrent contracts.

~~~
gkop
A third perspective:

After living and working in California for 6 years, I was considering a job as
third engineer at a startup in another state. I was a bit anxious about side
projects, and asked about them after receiving the offer. The response was
basically what you said, a pleasant surprise, not scary like Joel warned. But
for piece of mind, if I took the job, I would still want to find a lawyer in
the new state to review the paperwork, which is a drag.

In the end I chose to remain in CA, and it's nice. It's nice to completely not
ever have to worry about this issue at all. So I get why Joel is resentful
after working for years in states where unreasonable invention assignment
clauses _are_ enforceable.

------
kafeltz
[https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/840231319082754049](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/840231319082754049)

------
wsc981
At least Carmack won't be sued by Jordan Mechner, he dodged a bullet there:
[https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/837127224675328000](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/837127224675328000)

------
merraksh
_Instead Carmack is suing Zenimax Media for $22.5 million that he says has not
been paid to him for the 2009 sale of his game studio, id Software, known for
such pioneering video game classics as Doom and Quake._

 _The lawsuit reveals that ZeniMax Media paid $150 million for the game studio
behind such pioneering video gaming classics as Doom and Quake._

Off topic, but I'm disappointed in the quality of writing: why repeating "such
pioneering video gaming classics as Doom and Quake"? I get the impression that
the article was either written in a rush or just mixed up (in a rush) from
other sources.

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dsschnau
off topic: I had no idea John Carmack was so fit!

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misty_tech
wow that's interesting.

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hayd
Does the author even read the article after copying and pasting the press
release?

> Instead Carmack is suing Zenimax Media for $22.5 million that he says has
> not been paid to him for the 2009 sale of his game studio, id Software,
> known for _such pioneering video game classics as Doom and Quake_.

> The lawsuit reveals that ZeniMax Media paid $150 million for the game studio
> behind _such pioneering video gaming classics as Doom and Quake_.

Subsequent sentences. FFS.

~~~
a13n
Have you ever shipped a product with bugs before?

~~~
danm07
Nice.

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rongway
"serious injury" hah, what a joke

~~~
aligna
It's not a joke, it's standard legal verbiage.

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pmarreck
He seems like a stand-up guy to me (not that that implies innocence), so this
is of course mostly a misunderstanding from what I can tell (since two well-
meaning people can still end up in a lawsuit over misunderstandings)

~~~
jacquesm
I find it hard to believe that someone as smart and well versed in copyright
and patent law as Carmack would not be able to understand the terms of his
employment contract.

~~~
erikbye
Why do you say he is well-versed in copyright and patent law? He has always
been vocally against patents and even threatened to leave id Software back in
the day if they started patenting. He is a known proponent for open source and
have released a lot of source code for their games. I do not think he is well-
versed in this at all, because he basically wants nothing to do with it.

~~~
jacquesm
Because he ran a bloody rocket company and a software company and that means
that you have to understand the basics.

Or did you feel that 'being a nice guy' should protect you from legalities or
the responsibilities that go with the job title?

