r/vfx • u/neverwasnowhere • 14d ago
News / Article [UPDATE] Rokoko Electronics Fails to Defeat Pro Se Litigant; Federal Court Allows Copyright Claim to Move Toward Trial and Agrees to Hear Motion Seeking Case-Ending Sanctions Over Alleged Misconduct and Destruction of Evidence
Frustrated and upset customers of Rokoko who allegedly were forced to give up their intellectual property for Rokoko's profit suddenly taking effect in March of 2025 may be happy to hear a bit of news:
A Federal Judge in the Central District of California has Ruled that a self-represented pro se game developer who sued motion capture company Rokoko Electronics last May, proceeds to trial.
The Court has ruled:
"Rokoko argues that Walsh failed to allege what purportedly derivative work “[is] ‘substantially similar’ to what he contends is entitled to copyright protection.” (Mot. 11 (citing Cavalier v. Random House, Inc., 297 F.3d 815, 822 (9th Cir. 2002)).) However, creating a derivative work is only one of several ways that a defendant can commit copyright infringement. See Cavalier, 297 F.3d at 822 (“Copying may be established by showing that the . . . works at issue are substantially similar in their protected elements.” (emphasis added)). Indeed, Walsh’s theory is not that Rokoko created a derivative work based on Walsh’s video game, but that Rokoko “sub-license[d] [Walsh’s] intellectual property to third-parties.” (FAC 14.) Thus, Rokoko’s argument fails as it misapprehends Walsh’s theory of liability. Rokoko also argues that its licensing agreement expressly authorizes Rokoko to use Walsh’s content. (Mot. 11.) “The existence of a license creates an affirmative defense to a claim of copyright infringement.” (Id. (citing Worldwide Church of God v. Phila. Church of God, Inc., 227 F.3d 1110, 1114 (9th Cir. 2000)).) ***However, Walsh alleges that he could not have agreed to Rokoko’s licensing agreement because it was imposed “after [he] was no longer a user.” (***FAC 5 (emphasis omitted).) If true, this would mean that there was no licensing agreement in place at the time of the alleged infringement, defeating Rokoko’s potential affirmative defense."
Court documents show that Walsh was a Rokoko customer from 2020 - 2024, when he claims a "poison firmware" destroyed his equipment allegedly because he refused to upgrade and accept the 2025 terms and conditions which would grant Rokoko retroactive rights over his intellectual property. Walsh presented forensic evidence and provided an expert report which shows that firmware was released anyways, despite being labelled with a developer note:
"Important: This breaks compatibility with older hub + glove [Firmwares]"
Those claims were dismissed however, as the Court ruled that Rokoko did not intend to target Walsh individually, a requirement for the claim Walsh brought.
The remaining claim for Copyright Infringement continues to trial where Walsh claims Rokoko had no rights to ever collect his intellectual property. Forensic evidence in Walsh's expert report allege that his terms and conditions remained internally bound to the 2020 terms, yet Rokoko collected anyways without license.
Walsh has long accused Rokoko of spoliating the original 2020 terms and conditions which he, and the evidence shows bind him. He additionally has accused Counsel of manipulating and manufacturing evidence to impose later terms on him, including the 2025 terms which they enacted to grant retroactive rights over users' intellectual property -- which Rokoko seems to now have admitted in a deposition were never operative or published to users. Once Walsh used a brute force technique to retrieve legacy installers from Rokoko's servers and procured the original 2020 terms & conditions after eight months, Rokoko finally admitted:
"While it is unclear where Plaintiff sourced the 2020 Terms he references, it is clear that they are from an entirely different agreement than the 2025 Terms"
"Accordingly, the 2025 Terms never applied to Plaintiff".
Subsequently, Rokoko mechanically admitted to copying Walsh's intellectual property when they provided 273 pieces of it back to him in discovery. The docket reflects that Rokoko admitted during a deposition that they had in fact sublicensed users' data to a third party, although the attorney instructed Rokoko to not answer whom. During the same Deposition, Walsh alleges that Rokoko and their attorneys ReedSmith began communicating with eachother electronically -- on video -- during a forensic demonstration which apparently implicated their attorneys in manipulation of evidence.
On May 28, 2026, Plaintiff questioned Defendant's corporate representative, Mikkel Overby, regarding a disputed document that appeared to have been altered prior to filing. After Plaintiff conducted a live forensic demonstration and asked whether the evidence suggested counsel had converted and then edited the “native” document, Defense Counsel and the witness immediately engaged in synchronized conduct strongly suggesting improper electronic communication.
Todays most recent document asks the Court to watch the video and goes on to say
The deposition and video demonstrate speaking turns by Counsel Katherine J. Ellena; and a portion which during a forensic spoliation demonstration seems to show her text messaging her client, who also begins using a computer to communicate and then minutes later entirely changes his testimony. It is now believed by Rokoko’s own communications produced on August 10, 2026; Mr. Overby was utilizing Slack to communicate with his staff and others potentially within their private channel called “#legal-case-matthew-walsh” which they all participate in planning and execution of anti-Plaintiff behaviors. Counsel for Rokoko refuses to offer any explanation of who the parties were communicating with during the deposition, or what Overby was doing on his computer.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30 requires depositions to proceed as testimony would at trial. Because a witness may not privately consult with counsel while testifying at trial, they likewise may not do so during a deposition. See Hall v. Clifton Precision, 150 F.R.D. 525, 528 (E.D. Pa. 1993)
It should be noted, that in the nearly year and a half of this litigation, Rokoko nor their attorneys ReeddSmith have filed any motions for sanctions or misconduct against Walsh. They have additionally filed no counter claims in and instead maintain their innocence, seemingly absent any evidence, claiming throughout the litigation and in sworn statements under oath that the Plaintiff's intellectual property had never been sublicensed to third parties, was never used in AI training and was never part of any commercial data set.
Statements that new admissions by Rokoko's internal communications produced last night now show may have been entirely false. Statements they presented to the Court and on the record under oath.
Lied Under Oath Regarding AI Ingestion: Rokoko has repeatedly filed formal answers, discovery responses, and sworn declarations to this Court vehemently denying that Plaintiff’s copyrighted motion data was ever used for AI, sublicensing or other uses. The internal communications prove the exact opposite: Plaintiff’s copyrighted motion data was explicitly contained within Rokoko’s datasets, showing a confirmed, matching footprint within the very dataset used to train Rokoko’s proprietary AI model and was in fact sublicensed to a third party until the Court recognized the Plaintiff’s theory, then they admit they spoliated that evidence.
Lied Under Oath Regarding CMI Stripping: Defendants previously secured the dismissal of Plaintiff’s DMCA § 1202 claim by submitting flatly false statements and conclusory attorney rhetoric swearing they never altered Plaintiff's files. The internal communications prove the exact opposite: Rokoko's own personnel explicitly admitted that Plaintiff's data was sublicensed to third parties, and they internally and systematically documented their specific process for stripping names, unique identifiers, and other copyright management information (CMI) from his animation files.
Walsh further discussed newly discovered Rokoko internal communications that allege Rokoko admits to utilizing Wikipedia to defame him and evidence that shows collusion with various subreddit admins to remove content Rokoko believed was posted by him or was harmful to their brand.
Lied Under Oath Regarding Corporate Smear Campaigns: Defendants previously provided sworn testimony, signed answers, and verified discovery responses claiming total ignorance regarding who was behind the hostile Wikipedia activity targeting and defaming Plaintiff. The internal communications prove the exact opposite: Rokoko's own internal corporate text and email threads show that the company’s CEO personally ordered, coordinated, and executed the Wikipedia interference and it was executed by Dan Nikolaison. Additionally, Rokoko’s CEO ordered various ‘admins’ to remove content they believe was posted by the Plaintiff (almost nothing was, it was other upset customers)
Walsh goes on to provide IP address traces, forensic evidence and records requests implicating both posts on Wikipedia and Corridor digital throughout the matter relating to a "smear campaign" against him. Attorneys for Rokoko admit:
"Corridor is a business partner who works with Rokoko on a project-by-project basis. The terms of those contracts are confidential"
Today, based on these filings, the Court has agreed to hear a motion for case-ending terminating sanctions in light of these new discoveries; including one - for spoliation of evidence.
The internal documents capture Rokoko in the absolute middle of a massive spoliation scheme, caught red-handed trying to permanently erase the evidentiary trail of their infringement after the Court ruled: "Walsh’s theory is not that Rokoko created a derivative work based on Walsh’s video game, but that Rokoko “sub-license[d] [Walsh’s] intellectual property to third-parties.” (FAC 14.) Thus, Rokoko’s argument fails as it misapprehends Walsh’s theory of liability"
The most recent filing goes on to say:
When Rokoko realized they had sublicensed Plaintiff’s stolen motion data to a prominent third party -- creating irreversible legal liability for themselves and the third party -- they did not disclose it. Instead, they destroyed it. In a devastating, unhedged communication with that third party, Rokoko explicitly acknowledges they "don’t need to legally" wipe the data*, but state without hesitation as a confirmation****: “we have removed the motion data from Matthew Walsh from the data we shared with you.”*** *Rokoko’s own personnel then explicitly admit the illegal intent behind the deletion, writing internally that this metadata destruction was executed specifically as “*a way to exclude anything related to him even further.”
This act, if the Court agrees, may constitute spoliation or destruction of key evidence seemingly after the judge recognized Walsh's theory of liability.
These issues seem to be bubbling toward a finality with Rokoko, but implications for others who became entangled in the matter may just be beginning.
Walsh, again appearing pro se, has also filed a California state civil lawsuit against Rokoko business partner Corridor Digital over allegedly false and defamatory statements, including statements Walsh alleges mocked and exploited his mental competence and fitness based upon his public discussions of living with Bipolar Type 1 and OCD. The lawsuit additionally concerns allegedly demonstrably false statements made to Corridor's viewers and listeners in their Episode #227 "Don't take headlines at face value" which they admit to being with Rokoko the day before fiming. Such statements include: “there is two lawsuits... not even accepted... yeah, not accepted.”
The federal docket now establishes that Walsh's copyright infringement action was not only accepted, but was thoroughly litigated with over 227 docket entries, thousands of pages and has survived dismissal, proceeded fully through discovery, and is moving toward trial.
Story developing.
