With a profit of 10.2 billion USD by the end of 2016, Facebook was sentenced to 500 million USD in damages as a result of a copyright infringement case against VR company Oculus, which it bought.

Facebook, which profits from analytical reports even from 2016, which is said to be stagnant for all sectors, is confused by this $ 500 million penalty. The company will pay 500 million USD in damages to ZeniMax, the company that filed the lawsuit against Oculus for using software code of another company.

One of the most important names in the next generation technology segment with virtual reality goggles and VR applications, Rift was purchased by Facebook in 2014 for 2 billion USD. According to ZeniMax’s claims Oculus uses their own virtual reality technologies; Palmer Luckey, an engineer working in the company, was transferred to Oculus, and the engineer took the technological infrastructure of Zenimax to the new company. For this reason, ZeniMax, a game developer which claimed 2 billion USD in compensation from Facebook, was found right, but had to settle for 500 million USD.

Facebook has been convicted of misrepresentation and copyright infringement in the case; taking place in Dallas, US for about three weeks. But the court did not accept that trade secrets were being stolen; for production of Rift VR glasses, another claim of ZeniMax.

Facebook’s owner, Mark Zuckerberg, who did not accept this decision; expressed that this was under ‘intellectual property rights’; and that it was not a copyright infringement. Zuckerberg, who was told to appeal for the decision; added that Oculus’s idea of ​​developing his own products with technology from another company is completely wrong. Underlining that Oculus products are the end of Oculus’s own technology; Zuckerberg said that the goals of achieving long-term; and efficient work in the field of VR have not changed.

Formal copyright infringement decision

ZeniMax is pleased with the court’s decision; and expressed that Facebook and Oculus were waiting for a formal decision to prevent the usage computer codes; that the court has defined as copyright infringement. ZeniMax CEO Robert Altman said that they saw the stolen of their intellectual assets as a serious crime. Altman added that they were pleased with the decision made by the jury and the reparations.