Remember the whole Scrolls debacle? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrolls_%28video_game%29#Bethes... Apparently that was Bethesda Softworks, not Zenimax... but I wonder who was really behind it.
It's not really impossible to conceive that they might actually have a valid claim.
Unless recreating non-patented work from memory is actually forbidden? That would be horrible.
1 - If your employment contract says that the company owns 100% of your work unless otherwise approved, you have limited legal standing. This means all side projects must be approved, or the company owns it.
2 - Some employment contracts are more specific that they only own what happens during working hours. This can be tough if you work on a project during working hours, and they reject it. You definitely can't take the code with you, but you can keep what's in your head.
3 - If you pitch a side project done on your own time to a company who only owns what's produced during your working hours, then you have a right to take it with you if you offer it to them and they don't want it.
I actually don't consider #1 so awful. As a prospective employee you should negotiate it with a price. Similar to if someone wants a very long non-compete. It's only immorale if they spring it on you after you start. If they hand it to you during salary negotiations, then you can put a price on it, or go elsewhere. ("I'm happy to accept a 1 year non-compete, if you pay me 5% more, and give me 6 months severance if I'm fired for any reason, including with cause.")
It would be similar to saying a book writer who's main job is a typist would have to get his book approved (and potentially denied), or an artist would lose rights to his works he makes during his free time. It's out of this world wrong.
Note that - depending on the details - state law my trump one of those "We own your brain 100% of the time, 24x7" sort of agreements, even if you did sign it. There are states where the law simply does not permit an employer to enforce such an overly broad claim to an individual's intellectual output.
Now if the work in question was legitimately done on "work time", in the course of a work related initiative, then it seems clear that the IP does belong to the employer in most cases.
The question to me (coming at this as a non lawyer) is where the line is between "the IP" per-se and general knowledge and know-how that you absorb by osmosis over time, and which you clearly should not be restricted from accessing. IOW, if Programmer A learns to use a "for loop" during his first programming job, does that mean he can never use a "for loop" again? Obviously not...
3 - If you pitch a side project done on your own time to a company who only owns what's produced during your working hours, then you have a right to take it with you if you offer it to them and they don't want it.
That certainly seems like the way things should be. :-)
Imagine you're a chef. You design and cook menu items at your day job, then you go home and make pasta alfredo in your own way. You go to a new restaurant and you bring your pasta alfredo influence to it. Should restaurant 1 have any rights to the pasta alfredo you designed at home that was not even in use at their restaurant? Should restaurant 1 be able to charge you for making your pasta alfredo at home?
Obviously the big issue here is stealing code snippets or working on other products on the clock of another employer. But the blanket "anything you make while employed here at any capacity is ours" is just ridiculous and needs to go away.
Just to play devils advocate here, sometimes it is the businessman with the idea and the programmers who implement the idea and create the tech. Should the Idea man get the rights or the "workers" digging the trench.
A lot of large companies have policies that anything you make in your off time is owned by them. I can see why they do it my company has probably spent thousands on training and employee development and they want the return.
It may not be a popular thing for some people (including myself) but I see why they do it.
And that's just wrong, plain and simple. There's no excuse this is allowed.
> I can see why they do it my company has probably spent thousands on training and employee development and they want the return.
Training someone is not a valid claim to all uses of those skills; off-time is off-time. Just because someone applies a skill they learned at work in their off-time in no way justifies the company owing that work.
> The proprietary ... know-how Mr. Carmack developed when he was a ZeniMax employee ... are owned by ZeniMax.
I've typed and erased this response 3 times because I tend to wander, but the I think what irks me the most about things like this is that they will end up concentrating on some physical object, like some code that he created in his spare time while still under their employment.
They won't even acknowledge the fact that this is a titan of productivity and a genius programmer who could probably conjure up anything he's written in the past N decades given an afternoon.
1) He refused John Carmack's pitch for a new project. Stupid.
2) That got his best employee to quit the company and start a new one. Double stupid.
3) That new company he has no rights to was worth $2 billion a year and a half later. Management-level stupid. (note I don't care what it's "value" is, someone paid 2 billion for it, that makes it worth 2 billion)
And now of course, the lawyer wants some money. It isn't fair that something I could have had but didn't want was sold for $2 billion ! Obviously they owe me for the idea !
I have a 2 year old daughter that has this sort of behaviour too. I also have a 5 year old daughter, who has grown out of it (that wasn't easy, let me tell you). I'd expect the CEO of a legal company to ...
Dammit I almost got through that last sentence without laughing ... and crying.
If they expect "the proprietary ... know-how" and experience of all employees to remain confidential, then surely they can't have expected him to use any of the knowledge he gained working anywhere else previously, when he started working for them.
If that's the case, employing Carmack gains you nothing over employing a fresh new graduate, except that it costs a heck of a lot more.
Or are they just another bunch of fucking hypocrites?
When I read this, my thoughts went to all the smart people who created something awesome while employed at a company and were never personally credited.
I mean, so much of our discourse is tied up in exchanging opinions of companies rather than individuals.
Feels a bit strange now I come to think of it. Having all these overbearing hierarchical organisations of people, that end up directly or indirectly controlling large parts of your life.
But:
> ZeniMax provided necessary VR technology and other valuable assistance to Palmer Luckey and other Oculus employees in 2012 and 2013 to make the Oculus Rift a viable VR product, superior to other VR market offerings.
My guess: it sounds like John Carmack began an informal relationship with Luckey and Oculus, and possibly wrote some code for or advised them while he was still at iD. If so, Zenimax is likely legally in the right. Yikes.
My guess is that Zenimax wants to get access to the source to go on a fishing expedition.
He's friendly and is exactly the sort of engineer that helps teach others how to do things--just look at the GPL releases of all the old Quake stuff when it came out (back in the 90s!).
Back in the day id programmers shared snippets of code with whoever they wanted - they didn't need to ask any corporate overseer for permission. There were a few little bits found when the GarageGames/Tribes engine code was first released, for example. (pretty sure they got those lines of code from Brian Hook, but it's been a long time...)
That's the key word, isn't it.
If the Oculus guys weren't absolutely clear about who owned what, and what the patents were, then they're screwed.
By which I mean, they will for sure be embroiled in a long and costly legal battle, unless they settle.
John Carmack's 'know-how' is owned by ZeniMax? Absurd.
[0] https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/461918500307472384
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/05/id-software-parent-sta...
The letters from ZeniMax's lawyers came after Facebook struck its deal to acquire Oculus, part of the company's efforts to leap from a social-media platform to a major player in the race with Google Inc., Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. to be at the forefront of Internet use.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230394810...
Either they should fire the people handling PR or talk to them before doing dumb shit.
it sounds to me like they are saying that John Carmack did VR work for Oculus while still at Id and then took his tech demo with him when he left Id/ZeniMax.
This seems like the kind of thing John had done in the past and no one cared when they were still Id software. Once they sold themselves, it seems like the parent company no longer considers this type of activity to be ok.
or put another way, it sounds like shades of Sergey Aleynikov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov), where a programmer does something he always does but once he leaves the company the company decides that they weren't cool with it after all.
Oh right, AA isn't worth $2B.
