7 WTF Times People Got Screwed Out Of Million-Dollar Ideas
Have you ever come up with what you thought was an awesomely original idea, only to find out some bastard got there before you? Sucks, right? But there's one feeling worse than realizing you weren't first: being first and it simply not mattering. Here are some geniuses who had once-in-a-lifetime ideas, did everything right, changed the world for the better, and still saw their credit vanish like a fart in the wind.
The Woman Who Designed The Nike "Swoosh" Got Like $35
There are few corporate logos as immediately recognizable as the curvy Nike symbol, meant to convey the speed of your feet (and your wallet emptying). So what was the reward for creating one of the most iconic symbols in corporate history? $35, which was actually quite a bit from a company that couldn't keep a profit going at the time.
Upon its unveiling in 1971, the "Swoosh" was not an immediate hit with Nike CEO Phil Knight, though graphic designer Carolyn Davidson was pretty sure it was the best of the designs she had done up for the company. Due to time constraints, they wound up choosing it, though they didn't even have a name for the company yet. Nine years later, in 1980, Nike went live on the stock market, earning approximately all the money. For 12 years, Davidson must have bitterly watched her $35 logo appear on every billboard in the world without getting an extra dime. Then, in 1983, Nike executive Bob Woodell passed Knight in a hallway and reminded him of the woman who had made his brand soar. And so it was, 12 years after she gave a face to a cultural behemoth, that Davidson was invited to lunch at the Nike campus. She was given certificates, golden rings, and an envelope containing shares of Nike worth a few hundred thousand dollars. All thanks to the kindness of corporate executives.
Still, one has to wonder if Knight would have ever done the right thing if a colleague hadn't casually mentioned it to him one day in the hallway at work. Would Davidson be regaling folks at the bar about how she "made that Nike swoosh," and be greeted by the pursed lips and raised eyebrows of skepticism? Or maybe she would have spent the rest of her life bitterly plotting vengeance on Nike by trying to convince Adidas to make their stripes more wobbly? We'll never know.
The Author Of The Witcher Books Sees No Money From The Video Games
For the uninitiated, The Witcher looks like Castlevania all grown up, but fans of the video game series love it most for its complex narrative, amazing character writing, and artistically justified milkmaid threesomes. The sheer worldbuilding is like something out of a book -- which comes as no surprise, because the games are indeed based on a series of novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski.
When game developer CD Projekt decided to swoop in and make the books into a role-playing game, they cut a quick, one-time deal with Sapkowski. In return, the developer was allowed to use his world and characters and forge its own stories with them. "They offered me a percentage of their profits. I said, 'No, there will be no profit at all -- give me all my money right now! The whole amount," says Sapkowski. That may sound utterly crazy now, but back in the early 2000s, when book-to-game adaptations had reached peak success with Bible Adventures, it made more sense for him to ask for money up front. That "reasonable share" probably didn't lessen the pain much when Sapkowski saw the sales figures from the Witcher sequels, which he made precisely zero dollars from.
Of course, a bag of money isn't the only thing Sapkowski got out of the successful franchise. The game series has helped his books reach a more international audience, but he feels it has nonetheless hurt his reputation more than it has helped. Already, people are starting to think of the fantasy veteran as the guy who adapted the games into books, and not the other way around. "In 20 years," he says, "somebody will ask, 'Witcher, the game -- and who's the author?" Nobody will know the answer, he fears. It would be like A Song Of Ice And Fire being adapted into a massively popular PlayStation franchise, but then George R.R. Martin not getting a penny every time someone pays to play around with Hodor's giant goddamned head.
So while Sapkowski admits that his lack of faith in CD Projekt was disturbing, he does claim that he admires the games, calling them very well-made, and he says he's at peace with his decision. He'll even sign copies of the game when fans present them -- and only occasionally breaks through the plastic with his pen.
The Guy Who Created The Concord Grape (That Is, Jelly) Got No Money For It
Let's be real, the only time you want jelly is when you look in the fridge and don't have any. But whole nations sustain themselves on the thickened jam of fruits -- in particular, a single type of grape that's turned into most jellies. That was the idea of a titan, Ephraim Wales Bull, who went to great pains to invent the kind of grape that most people associate with jelly: the world-famous Concord grape.
Named for its New England birthplace, the original vine from 1849 actually still exists at Bull's old Massachusetts home. That's not surprising, seeing as he cultivated the Concord to be tough, quick to ripen, and especially easy to grow. Bull took pride in his new litter of grapelings, showing them off to his fellow New Englanders at an 1853 horticulture conference. They were an instant hit with the grape-lovers of Concord, landing him a feature in a botany magazine and many sales.
But his success would prove his undoing. The ease with which these grapes could be produced meant farmers quickly discovered that they could grow them with the least amount of effort or cost. After spreading his seed, his profits immediately dried up. For the hard work he put in making a plant that was fertile and that could survive the harsh northern winters, he was rewarded with a big Yankee middle finger salute. If the saying "sour grapes" did not arise from this ordeal, we will shit in our hat.
The Author Of A Clockwork Orange Got Nothing From The Film
A Clockwork Orange is a movie about confronting the traumatic savagery of men, wedged in between a slew of naked women and bits of the old ultra violence. Stanley Kubrick based the film on the 1962 novel of the same name by Anthony Burgess. These were two men who weren't afraid to voice radical opinions, which only became problematic when Burgess found out he had been screwed out of profits from a masterpiece.
When Burgess sold the rights to A Clockwork Orange for "a few hundred dollars," he did so knowing it was probably the only chance for him to see his work turned into a movie -- even his own screenplay had been rejected. And while he was wary of Kubrick, at first he was quite happy with the how the film was shaping up. He even agreed to help promote the film, which entailed him picking up Malcolm McDowell every morning and asking him if he had taken a shit.
However, during the initial press tour, perhaps by seeing how controversial and successful the movie turned out, Burgess started feeling like he had been shortchanged. His relationship with Kubrick had soured by then, largely because he felt that Kubrick was treating him like a glorified gofer, sending him to promote a movie he hadn't even been allowed to consult on. He was even forced to accept an award on Kubrick's behalf, though not without taking a dig at him, declaring to the audience, "I have been sent by God -- Stanley Kubrick -- to accept his award!"
Even worse, because of the film, Burgess was being accused of his work causing actual rapes, and was taking as much of a public beating as Kubrick without any of the reward. The controversy compelled him to pen essays defending the movie and director he had grown to hate. This left Burgess somewhat bitter. How do we know? When he finally made his own stage adaptation of his novel, he included lines like this:
A man bearded like Stanley Kubrick comes on playing, in exquisite counterpoint, "Singin' In The Rain" on a trumpet. He is kicked off the stage.
So yeah, it's safe to say he wasn't a fan.
The Actress Who Played Teenage Elsa In Frozen Got Shafted
There are cartoon movies, and then there is the child-devouring behemoth that is Frozen. You know it as the most successful animated movie ever, with songs that don't quite hold up to their one millionth repetition. Its success has been an inescapable phenomenon, bathing everyone involved with the movie in thick gooey strands of money.
Well, technically not everyone got to share a bite of the billion-dollar Frozen pie. Just ask the voice actress who played the part of Elsa as a teenager. Fifteen-year-old Spencer Lacey Ganus lent her voice to the iconic ice princess who almost brutally manslaughters her sister for a few minutes. And to be fair, that's a more vicious part than most Disney villains get -- they only have to pretend to put princesses to sleep for a long time.
Its always the ones who don't look capable of fratricide.
So for this tough gig, the compensation had to have been realistic, fair, and commensurate with her performance, as per the high standard that Disney has always adhered to, right? Nope! They left her a check for $926, not even a cool grand, for being involved with a once-in-a-lifetime movie event. That kind of indifference toward a crucial part of the movie's charm may seem like a giant insult, but don't worry, she wasn't alone. Josh Gad, who played Olaf the snowman, was only paid a couple thousand bucks. Just because they're cold inside doesn't mean they need to be victims of temperaturist discrimination.
Since the movie came out four years ago, Ganus did receive over $10,000 in royalties for her troubles. Which seems like a lot until you remember the billlion-y part of the box office returns. Sadly, Disney shortchanging its voice actors won't change anytime soon. To quote the magnificent Robin Williams, who only got paid a pittance of his fee for his work on Aladdin: "You realize now when you work for Disney why the mouse has only four fingers -- because he can't pick up a check."
The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony" Was Mostly Just Bitter
The Verve are one of those '90s one-hit wonders who kept a whole generation of college students extra-pretentious with their hit "Bittersweet Symphony." And if you're one of the many people who hate that they kinda like the song, good news! It just means that you like orchestral music and the Rolling Stones. So did the Verve, and it cost them everything.
While the Verve wrote the lyrics and some of the music, the song's main musical theme was in fact sampled from the orchestral version of the Rolling Stones tune "The Last Time." The band was aware they were borrowing a component of that song, so they agreed with the Stones' publishing company to license a tiny snippet (five notes) in exchange for half of the royalties. But like everything else in that song, the hook drags on way longer that that, so the Stones' manager filed a plagiarism lawsuit against the Verve.
Typically, these kinds of disputes are settled out of court with a few large bags of money, but in this case, the court really took the Verve to task. The band was forced to forfeit all the royalties of the song, which was a pretty big hit, meaning they had to hand over a small fortune. They also lost all publishing rights to the song, as well as having the actual songwriting credits revert back to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. But the legal dogpile didn't end there. See, the part of the Stones song that was sampled actually came from a symphonic version done by the Andrew Oldham Orchestra in 1965. So on top of everything else, composer Andrew Oldham also sued the Verve for $1.7 million in 1999, since he owned the recording that was sampled. Between the Stones and Oldham's fight over every scrap of flesh, the Verve basically had their entire song taken away from them. Companies even used it for commercials without their consent. For a final slap in the face, when the band was nominated for a Best Song Grammy, Jagger and Richards' names were on the ballot.
Well, actually, the final slap in the face probably belongs to the guy who actually wrote the cursed melody. That honor goes to David Whitaker, the arranger for the Andrew Oldham Orchestra in 1965. Actually, he didn't even get the honor, as Whitaker was never credited with anything on any of the recordings. So the lesson here isn't "Do right by artists. It's "Don't fuck with the Rolling Stones."
The Computer Mouse's Patent Ran Out Before Computers Were A Widespread Thing
Perhaps the greatest stroke of computer hardware genius must be the humble mouse. With nothing but a ball and two buttons, suddenly we could point and click on programs, drag and drop multiple files, and pause porn while we go retrieve the paper towel we forgot to set next to the keyboard. And you can thank Douglas Engelbart for that. Well, he's dead, but still thank him, because that's more than he ever received in his lifetime for his game-changing invention.
During the '60s and '70s, Engelbart began the process of designing the first computer mouse, which in its early incarnation was a wooden shell with two metal wheels inside. He wasn't sure why he called it a mouse, but the name sort of stuck around without him really noticing -- which is a pretty mouse-like quality. And when Engelbart filed for a patent in 1970, there was no going back.
But while Engelbart had great vision when it came to home computing, he wasn't that great with patent law. What he hadn't accounted for was that his patent only had a lifespan of 17 years. So once 1987 hit, his mouse design entered the public domain -- only a couple of years before home computers flooded every single household on Earth. And while he did receive grants, fellowships, and even the National Medal of Technology "for creating the foundations of personal computing," it must have stung knowing he missed a piece of over a billion mouses sold every time he pointed and clicked on his bank account.
Justin writes more hilarity on his site here. Here's his Twitter too, ya weirdo.
Also check out 5 Great Women Ignored By History For Absurdly Sexist Reasons and 6 Inventors Who Changed the World and Got Screwed in Return.
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