Bethesda alleges that this game is an actual ripoff though, that the company which Bethsoft hired for money to help make Fallout Shelter took sourcecode from that game (which is Bethsoft property) and used it to create this Westworld game.
Anyhow, if that is even remotely true, man did these people mess with the wrong company... Bethsoft is extremely aggressively litigious, they sued Mojang over the word "scrolls" for chrissakes (and
won! Unfortunately for Mojang, nobody thought of having the court make Bethsoft to show them how many games prior to 2010 contain the word "Rage" in their title... lul)
Probably comes from that one of Bethsoft's main owners is a (very) rich lawyer IIRC...
A hired programmer would have certain code and techniques that they use by habit. That code doesn’t automatically become property of any one entity if it’s his standard technique.
So if he can prove he used that code prior to Bethesda, then he’s free.
He was hired to perform a task. If his contract is to perform a task, then Bethesda doesn’t own anything.
If he was hired to create specific code, and the contract is written to transfer intellectual property, then Bethesda may have a case (assuming he never used that code prior to Bethesda).
If you hire me to design a custom off road vehicle that you plan to sell, my techniques don’t become your property. Unless our contract is for me to transfer ownership of that design to you. Otherwise, all you own is the right to use and sell the vehicle I built for you.
Likewise, when I used to design electronic devices, I had certain proprietary techniques that appeared in everything I made.
I had a standard product line that I sold. But...I also had companies hire me to design and produce a product that had never been made before. They’d describe the intended function in absolute detail. And I’d design and produce the first one.
Nowhere in that transaction did I transfer to them any rights of ownership to any aspect of that design.
Sometimes, I’d even give them the details to replicate it. And produce as many as they wanted on their own. But... all design rights stayed with me.
Many of those custom designs that I was hired to produce eventually became part of my standard product line.
I’d either offer the exact product to other people, or I’d incorporate aspects of that product into my my other future product offerings.
I also have worked with designing custom virtual environments for other people / companies. And sometimes I will design something for someone and really like a certain design component of that project. And sometimes I will incorporate those favorites aspects into other virtual environments that I design for other people.
In fact, after a number of virtual environments had been made for different entities, I had a lot of favorite aspects from a number of different environments I had design.
I had a personal desire to produce for myself one environment that incorporated all my favorite aspects from the hundreds of other virtual environments I had made.
After it was done, the finished design was amazing. All my favorites came together like a highly refined virtual environment that was the software equivalent of a greatest hits album (except it was a visual interactive product).
I showed it to someone, they liked it. So I sold it to them.
But.... in all my above examples, I retained full ownership of everything I ever made. Even the works I did under contract. Because my contract was to perform a task.
My contract was not to develop and transfer ownership of proprietary intellectual property. In other words, all they purchased was my labor. They didn’t own my ideas, techniques, etc.
The article does not provide enough information to declare with any certainty whether Bethesda is correct in their assertions.
