Oculus Copyright Payout to Zenimax Halved, Ban on Rift Sales Lifted
A new court ruling has rejected a request to ban Oculus Rift sales and reduced Facebook's $500 million payout to Zenimax by half.
Facebook has been involved in a legal battle with holding company ZeniMax Media since 2014 following a lawsuit that alleged Facebook had stolen key technology from the company for use in Oculus-branded virtual reality headsets, and though the social media giant would eventually be ordered to pay $500 million in damages, it appears that figure has now been reduced to $250 million.
A court ruling has recently decided to reduce the payout owed to ZeniMax by a substantial 50 percent, and U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade additionally rejected ZeniMax's request for a complete ban on Oculus headsets.
The lawsuit initially posited that John Carmack, co-founder of id Software, betrayed ZeniMax by bringing company secrets over to Oculus shortly after he became the Oculus chief technical officer back in August 2013. Carmack resigned from id Software to work full time for Oculus just three months later, and though the jury would later absolve him of liability, the case against Oculus was strong enough for Oculus to eventually be responsible for $200 million for breach of contract and $50 million for copyright infringement. According a report from Bloomberg, the remaining $250 million that was later cut included "damages against Oculus co-founders Brendan Iribe and Palmer Luckey."
In a statement, Facebook vice president Paul Grewal said the ruling "was a positive step toward a fair resolution," adding that the company will still seek to appeal the remaining claims. As for Oculus, Grewal stated that the company "will continue to invest in building the future of VR."
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