A VR demo at the Emirates booth during the 2023 Dubai Airshow is the subject of a lawsuit filed by a software development firm against Amazon Web Services.
Surreal Holdings of Alpharetta, Ga., alleges that AWS wrongly terminated their broader software development agreement and owes more than $1.27 million.
According to the suit, Amazon cited Surreal’s promotion of the Emirates project on its website, and its inclusion of the AWS and Emirates logos in a site footer, as breaches of confidentiality to justify terminating the larger agreement.
The lawsuit, filed Aug. 15 in U.S. District Court in Seattle, links to a video by Sam Chui, an aviation and travel vlogger with more than 3.5 million YouTube subscribers, to support its assertion that the work was not confidential.
Chui’s video from the Dubai Airshow included a 1-minute segment at the Emirates booth, in which he tried a virtual cabin crew experience using a VR headset. The segment did not reference Surreal’s involvement in creating the experience.
Chui is not mentioned by name in the suit and is not involved in the dispute.
The suit says the AWS and Emirates logos in the footer did not cite Surreal’s specific work for the companies, and therefore didn’t constitute a breach.
“After the Air Show, Surreal requested compensation for its work on the demo,” Surreal alleges in the suit. “However, AWS refused, stating that it was a ‘partner effort’ and that if Surreal had wanted to get paid for the work, it should have worked that out in advance. Neither AWS not Emirates ever paid Surreal or its vendor for any of the work performed on the demo.”
Amazon did not comment in response to an inquiry from GeekWire this week. Emirates, which is not named as a defendant, did not respond to an inquiry.
The work was part of a collaboration between AWS and Emirates, announced last year, to create virtual reality (a.k.a. “immersive extended reality”) experiences for Emirates employees, including crew training.
In the lawsuit, Surreal says it had the potential to make more than $15 million in license and support fees over five years from its broader agreement with AWS related to the Emirates work, before the contract was terminated.
Here’s the full text of the lawsuit.
SURREAL HOLDINGS, LLC v. AMAZON WEB SERVICES, INC. by GeekWire on Scribd
https://ift.tt/IpqZkaO August 21, 2024 at 06:49PM GeekWire
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