Coming up with fresh concepts is a tall order, especially when your paycheck depends on it. For the ten creators who allegedly lifted ideas that weren’t theirs, the fallout was anything but subtle. Below, we dive into each case, from TV mishaps to gaming faux pas, and see how the borrowed brilliance turned into public embarrassment.
10 creators who stole ideas: a quick glance
10 Fox Takes Song From Indie Performer And Sells It
Glee was the musical comedy drama that tried to juggle serious topics like gun violence and teenage angst with high‑energy song‑and‑dance numbers. While many of the tracks were specially recorded for the series, a few weren’t. One of the most talked‑about moments involved the show’s rendition of Sir Mix‑a‑Lot’s “Baby Got Back.”
Turns out the version that aired on Glee was not a fresh studio recording but a cover originally performed by indie musician Jonathan Coulton. Fox used Coulton’s rendition without stripping out the lyric where he refers to himself as “Johnny C.,” a line that made no sense in the context of the high‑school setting.
Fox defended the move by claiming that, legally, they didn’t need Coulton’s permission because the underlying composition was already licensed. They argued that Coulton should be grateful for the exposure, even though they never gave him credit. To top it off, they sold his cover on iTunes and kept the profits for themselves.
9 Game Company’s Big Reveal Uses Content From Other Game
In the world of game development, there’s hardly a studio as celebrated as Naughty Dog. Their titles often feel like Hollywood blockbusters, and fans worldwide hold their breath whenever a new trailer drops.
When the teaser for Uncharted 4 premiered, an observant Ubisoft employee spotted familiar artwork. Concept art originally crafted for the Assassin’s Creed franchise had been stripped of its characters and slipped into the trailer without permission. The blunder forced Naughty Dog to pull the video, edit out the offending frames, and re‑release a cleaned‑up version—an embarrassing hiccup for a high‑profile launch.
8 Japanese Anime Uses The Seinfeld Theme
One of the most bizarre alleged plagiarism cases comes from the Japanese anime Bomberman Jetters. Whenever a villain appeared on screen, the show played a near‑identical recreation of the iconic Seinfeld opening theme. This wasn’t just a few familiar notes; the sequence stretched for about forty seconds of unmistakable sitcom music.
To date, no legal action seems to have been taken. The anime’s massive global footprint—spanning two decades—makes the oversight puzzling. It likely escaped notice because the series never aired in the United States, but anyone who hears the tune can instantly recognize the source.
7 Facebook Users Freebooting YouTube Videos
Content creators have long struggled with the practice of “freebooting”—the act of ripping a video from one platform and reposting it elsewhere to reap the ad revenue. A YouTuber whose clip earned a few hundred dollars could see that same footage re‑uploaded to Facebook, racking up millions of views and tens of thousands of dollars in earnings for the uploader, while the original creator sees nothing.
For a creator with a million‑view video on YouTube, earnings hover around $1,000. Yet the freebooted version on Facebook could attract twenty‑million views, generating a vastly larger payout for the thief. The victim was left powerless to remove the infringing content, watching the revenue stream flow to someone else.After a year of mounting losses, Facebook finally rolled out a tool aimed at curbing freebooting. Whether the feature will truly protect creators or merely serve as a band‑aid remains to be seen.
6 Fox Takes Youtuber’s Video, Then Strikes His Channel
Back in 2009, YouTube user sw1tched posted a tutorial showing a glitch in the classic basketball game Double Dribble that let players score every time they shot. The clip caught Fox’s attention when the glitch appeared in an episode of Family Guy, with Peter Griffin using the exact same exploit.
Fox then filed a DMCA takedown against sw1tched’s original video, mistakenly labeling his content as their own because they had inserted the episode into YouTube’s Content ID system without removing the borrowed segment. After media outlets highlighted the blunder, Fox admitted the error and withdrew the copyright claim.
5 The Joke That Sank Carlos Mencia
Carlos Mencia once dominated Comedy Central with his show Mind of Mencia and a string of stand‑up specials. As his fame grew, fellow comedians began accusing him of joke theft, most notably Joe Rogan, who even invited Mencia onstage to confront him about the allegations.
Mencia defended himself by claiming his material was so broad anyone could independently arrive at the same punchlines. However, a side‑by‑side comparison of a 1983 Bill Cosby routine and Mencia’s 2006 bit—both about a father playing football with his son—showed striking similarity. The mounting accusations eventually led to Mencia’s quiet exit from the spotlight.
4 Small‑Time Developer Makes Big‑Time Mistake
Trek Industries faced a DMCA claim from Activision that resulted in their game Orion being pulled from Valve’s store during the year’s biggest sale. While the initial narrative painted it as a corporate giant bullying a small indie, a deeper dive revealed even more troubling content.
The game’s files contained assets ripped directly from the Call of Duty series, altered screenshots from Nintendo titles, and even helmets modeled after Boba Fett, Kylo Ren, and characters from Blizzard’s Overwatch. Disney’s notoriously aggressive copyright enforcement added urgency, prompting Trek to scramble and strip the infringing material.
3 Apple Owns Rounded Edges
Apple and Samsung have been locked in a series of lawsuits for years, each accusing the other of copying design elements. Apple successfully argued that the iPhone’s rounded edges constitute a distinctive design feature, forcing Samsung to pay a hefty settlement.
Samsung has since managed to reduce the judgment to a few hundred million dollars and is now fighting to overturn the decision entirely, a battle that has taken the dispute all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Remarkably, the last time the Supreme Court weighed in on a design case was over a century ago, and it involved a simple spoon.
2 Rocky Balboa Was A Real Person
In the early 1970s, Sylvester Stallone was a struggling actor with a handful of minor roles. After witnessing Chuck Wepner’s shocking knockout of Muhammad Ali, Stallone rushed home and penned the script for Rocky, launching his career.
Wepner maintains that his real‑life bout with Ali inspired the titular boxer, a claim Stallone denied for years. The third Rocky film even mirrored another of Wepner’s matches—this time against Andre the Giant—where Andre tossed Wepner out of the ring. In 2003, Wepner sued Stallone, leading to an out‑of‑court settlement.
1 Japan’s Beethoven Doesn’t Compose And Isn’t Deaf
Mamoru Samuragochi, hailed as the “Japanese Beethoven,” was celebrated for his emotionally charged compositions, many of which were said to honor the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. His music even became an anthem of hope after the 2011 tsunami.
The façade crumbled when a Japanese figure skater selected one of Samuragochi’s pieces for the Sochi Olympics. Takashi Niigaki, the actual composer behind the works, stepped forward and revealed that he had been ghostwriting Samuragochi’s entire catalog for the past 18 years. He also claimed Samuragochi’s deafness was exaggerated to boost the composer’s mystique.
Subsequent hearing tests showed Samuragochi was hearing‑impaired but not legally deaf, forcing him to surrender his disability card. The scandal sparked a nationwide conversation about authenticity in the arts.