Assimilate Scratch Lawsuit

[John Jonathan]

I don't want to start any sort of war here, but I am getting conflicting stories about the Autodesk versus Assimilate lawsuit. I know some of it is "here say" from other vendors who sell Autodesk products, who want you to be scared into buying lustre/smoke, but I can't get a good grasp on where the lawsuit is at?

I am not pro Autodesk, I have hated their practices since they stopped putting asterisks on all their product names, but is there any real legal fact out there that this lawsuit is over? Or where it is at?


Thank You.

[Brandon Kraemer]

I have hated their practices since they stopped putting asterisks on all their product names

...or since they sold the DS to Avid? :sad:

Sorry, I don't have any lawsuit info... but this line of your post cracked me up. I have met the guys in development at Autodesk, great guys up there in Montreal, for what that is worth.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

No law suit info here either, but can say that the original filing can be looked up as public record. Not that it makes any difference anyhow. These things can sometimes take years to resolve, assuming they don't work themselves out before the day comes in a court room. Don't let something like this delay a purchase of software tools you may need. Good chance that what you buy now could be obsolete or evolve into something else entirely before the legal conflicts have been resolved.

[Frank Cueto]

I would avoid saying anything about this in a public forum, since depending how the court decides, they could use you as an example of lost sales or something similar and counter sue, or somethinglike that. Get my drift?

[Tim Whitcomb]

Not sure I follow your logic Frank, as none of us appear to work for either company...

but I will say I have "heard" that the lawsuit was dismissed or indeed is "over" as recently as a week ago. My personal opinion was that it was a nuisance lawsuit by Autodesk anyway. "Death by 1000 Cuts" kind of strategy, but there is also a thread that Lucas addressed a few months ago and it (lawsuit) did seem pretty trivial.

As someone who has been sued (and won) I'd say in the end, "I lost" because of the time and money I was forced to spend defending it. Winning/Losing is always relative.

[Frank Cueto]

What I mean is...

When/If assimilate wins the lawsuit, they could make a case saying that there where damages to their reputation and sales due to this lawsuit, and that such and such persons decided not to purchase their products because of the lawsuit. I dunno if this is likely, but I wouldn't want to be dragged into something like that.

I read the lawsuit, and to me it seemed it had some kind of merit. Since Autodesk owns CYBORG, which is very similar, at least in look and feel. Autodesk claims that the technology to build scratch is based on cyborg, which they own. I guess it all hinges around that. I highly doubt that assimilate used the code from cyborg to build scratch. One would assume you could get some kind of forensic software engineer and figure this out ASAP.

If you want to know more I believe assimilate actually post the legal stuff on their web site!

[Noah Kadner]

You've been watching too much TV Frank. Unless someone directly involved in the case jumps on here this thread has no more important legal bearing as a couple of people chatting in a coffee shop about the news or sports. And I know that because I play a lawyer on TV.

Noah

[Frank Cueto]

So if someone here says that they where going to buy a full seat of scratch, but instead decided to buy luster or something similar because they where uncomfortable with the lawsuit there is nothing assimilate could do about it? That just seems unfair to me.

[MichaelP]

And to be clear on another point - Autodesk did not sell DS to Avid. DS was never an Autodesk product. Softimage was acquired by Microsoft. Avid bought Softimage from Microsoft. Avid sold Softimage to Autodesk (the 3D side). DS is still an Avid product.

Michael

[Frank Cueto]

And to be clear on another point - Autodesk did not sell DS to Avid. DS was never an Autodesk product. Softimage was acquired by Microsoft. Avid bought Softimage from Microsoft. Avid sold Softimage to Autodesk (the 3D side). DS is still an Avid product.

Michael

OH, I remember that time, around 1997! That was when the tide started turning for CGI leaving SGI's and going to NT boxes. Softimage 3.5 I believe was the first "High-end" animation system on PC.

[tj williams]

Yea rush out and buy Autodesk because they might win their lawsuit and your copy of scratch will be illegal. Or hey maybe remember all of us who bought Autodesk Edit and got left without support or upgrade path with practically no notice. I had over 30K in a system that was supported by these big guns one month and worth nothing the next when they dropped us.... Maybe your smoke will go the same way..... sorta up in smoke...
TJ

[Frank Cueto]

Well I sure didn't buy a Discreet solution for color correction ;-)

I can identify with what happened to your edit*.
Avid left us hanging (back in 97) with a 200+K Avid Media Illusion 1 month after purchase, so I KNOW how you feel.

And our smokes just took a huge depreciation today in value, just not sure how much yet, because...

...Smoke was announced for mac =)

Will it be called Smack* ?

[Adil Lahoulou]

Not sure I follow your logic Frank, as none of us appear to work for either company...

but I will say I have "heard" that the lawsuit was dismissed or indeed is "over" as recently as a week ago. My personal opinion was that it was a nuisance lawsuit by Autodesk anyway. "Death by 1000 Cuts" kind of strategy, but there is also a thread that Lucas addressed a few months ago and it (lawsuit) did seem pretty trivial.

the last I read was that on 9/28, the judge denied Assimilate a dismissal and change of venue motion. Have there been any other filings since?

http://depatentlaw.morrisjames.com/uploads/file/08%20587%20400.pdf

[Frank Cueto]

John, I would recommend that if you want a Assimilate solution don't pay much attention to the lawsuit. In the end this kind of stuff is highly unlikely to affect the end user. And if it where (not likely) then you have probably made money out of the system by then.

Got some friends in South America who still work with a Cyborg, and they are very happy with their system even though its been out of support for years, they are still making money with it.

[paulherrin]

So if someone here says that they where going to buy a full seat of scratch, but instead decided to buy luster or something similar because they where uncomfortable with the lawsuit there is nothing assimilate could do about it? That just seems unfair to me.

some "justice" system we've got, huh?

[John Jonathan]

I am not a huge fan of Lustre, I liked it better when it was Cyborg 5D, it seems Autodesk REMOVED features so it didn't compete with Flame/Inferno/Smoke when they made it Lustre, its just crazy. I'm surprised that BORG business model hasn't died?? but instead is growing, Autodesk is doing everything possible to own every high end app that exists. They own all 3D apps now, if the lawsuit against Assimiliate is bogus, it doesn't matter, they already put some doubt out there. I know the developers at Autodesk's film/vfx side are probably great guys, but somewhere at Autodesk is a exec with Bernard Madoff like greed, sitting in a 40k chair trying to figure out a way to monopolize our market.

[Evangelos Achillopoulos]

Its quite odd...

Many years ago I was discussing the possibilities with the project leader of Cyborg just after they fired him... I was about to get the team working for us in Greece I had an investor ready for that purpose, you see at IBC 2001 I was having the stand just opposite to 5D... I can't elaborate more...

From what I know both Nucoda and Scratch are spin off's from the same developing team...

[jake blackstone]

I am not a huge fan of Lustre, I liked it better when it was Cyborg 5D, it seems Autodesk REMOVED features so it didn't compete with Flame/Inferno/Smoke when they made it Lustre, its just crazy. I'm surprised that BORG business model hasn't died?? but instead is growing, Autodesk is doing everything possible to own every high end app that exists. They own all 3D apps now, if the lawsuit against Assimiliate is bogus, it doesn't matter, they already put some doubt out there. I know the developers at Autodesk's film/vfx side are probably great guys, but somewhere at Autodesk is a exec with Bernard Madoff like greed, sitting in a 40k chair trying to figure out a way to monopolize our market.
I guess you should try using Lustre now and then. Autodesk does an incredible job in keeping all of their high end finishing solutions pretty much feature uniform. The same project timeline can be opened in Flame, Inferno, Lustre or Smoke, manipulated, color graded, tracked, saved and sent over the local network for the next step. Syborg at the release time was pretty revolutionary solution, but now it seems pretty pedestrian in comparison to Lustre.

[John Jonathan]

I guess you should try using Lustre now and then. Autodesk does an incredible job in keeping all of their high end finishing solutions pretty much feature uniform. The same project timeline can be opened in Flame, Inferno, Lustre or Smoke, manipulated, color graded, tracked, saved and sent over the local network for the next step. Syborg at the release time was pretty revolutionary solution, but now it seems pretty pedestrian in comparison to Lustre.

What are you getting for this Autodesk Plug, the future is actually 100% the opposite of what you are saying. That convenience you speak of, opening a project in all the different Autodesk apss costs... 80+k Smoke, 120+K Flame, 120+k Lustre.

Sweet I just dropped 1/2 million to be able to open a timeline in 3 apps. Nice but no thanks. Why would I be looking at Scratch if I had 1/2 million to drop in hardware and software?

[Jeremy Neish]

I've never forgiven Autodesk for effectively killing off the greatest video compression program ever written: Cleaner (aka Media Cleaner). As a result, I refuse to buy any of their products. In certain circumstances, Cleaner still the best tool for the job, and we break out the old version, even though it's painfully slow and unstable with today's Mac OS.

[Allan Stallard]

What are you getting for this Autodesk Plug, the future is actually 100% the opposite of what you are saying. That convenience you speak of, opening a project in all the different Autodesk apss costs... 80+k Smoke, 120+K Flame, 120+k Lustre.

Sweet I just dropped 1/2 million to be able to open a timeline in 3 apps. Nice but no thanks. Why would I be looking at Scratch if I had 1/2 million to drop in hardware and software?

I agree it seems ridiculous the way you've phrased it, and with people who are trying to do it "all in one" even more ridiculous to spend in such a way. But in many situations the color grading is done with a specific person, with a specific room setup. Then heavy effects are handled by the flame artist and final conform, finishing, and lighter effects are handled on smoke. This may be overkill for many applications, but quite standard for all the rest. In my situation I couldn't imagine grading and then moving all the panels to make room for smokes wacom. Now if you do everything with one tablet or mouse and only want one app that does it all, a flame, smoke, lustre (or Scratch in my case) is certainly not the right path. But when the clients want a verticle workflow (everyone working at the same time) what is one person going to do?

[jake blackstone]

What are you getting for this Autodesk Plug, the future is actually 100% the opposite of what you are saying. That convenience you speak of, opening a project in all the different Autodesk apss costs... 80+k Smoke, 120+K Flame, 120+k Lustre.

Sweet I just dropped 1/2 million to be able to open a timeline in 3 apps. Nice but no thanks. Why would I be looking at Scratch if I had 1/2 million to drop in hardware and software?

What future do you have in mind, John? A future, when someone can casually accuse a fellow blogger of being a company plant? Well, count me out from this future. If you'd even bothered to read my other posts, you'd see, that I'm pretty much platform and app agnostic (well except Pablo:-)
Speaking of Pablo, that is an exact app, that you're advocating we should use, isn't it? Conform, composite, edit and grade. One app, one person, right? If you had spent any time in "real" post production facility, you'd know, that no station exist as an island. There is always need to move the project along toward completion between editors, 3d artists, compositors, colorists, sound mixers etc. Yes, those are all different professionals, responsible for distinctly different aspects of post production. In my future there always will be professionals, that are on top of their games in their respective fields...
I just don't get it, John. First you whine, that you don't like Lustre and prefer to use 5D(!) while saying, that Autodesk REMOVED features from Lustre. When I pointed out, that that is just not true, you immediately attacked me personally and changed the subject, What gives?:-)
BTW, what features were stripped Lustre? I wonder what I'm missing... Could it be multilayered timeline, versioning, Diamond keyer, planar tracker, GPU acceleration, RED and QT support, resorting, grouping and hiding portions of timelime, interoperability with other high end Autodesk apps? Oh no, those were actually ADDED just in a last couple of years...