5 Times Taylor Swift and Other Iconic Artists Were Scammed Out of Royalties

Taylor Swift
Mark Shrayber
6 min read

You?d think that the people who?ve created our most famous and abiding pieces of art ? whether it be audio or visual ? would be rolling in money. You write a hit song? You could at least buy a house! A whole catalog of hits? You shouldn?t even have to ask for the price of a Burberry bag.

But that?s sometimes not the whole story. Here are five cases where artists were cheated, stolen from or somehow scammed out of being paid for their work that became famous.

Last updated: Oct. 30, 2020

Nike

The Creator of the Nike Swoosh

The Nike Swoosh is a behemoth of branding. You think ?Just Do It? as soon as you see the iconic logo. But it wasn?t created by a team of advertising geniuses. Instead, a graphic design student named Carolyn Davidson dreamt it up.

Davidson was approached to make it by Nike co-founder Phil Knight, who was an accounting teacher at the time. After he heard Davidson tell a classmate that she couldn?t afford the costs of an art course she was taking, he asked her to make up some charts and graphs for his fledgling business.

Then he asked her to create a logo. Davidson made five ? including the swoosh ? and Knight didn?t love any of them. She charged him only $35.

You know what happened next. Nike became a global sensation. And Davidson got nothing for years ? although she was never bitter.

?It was Phil and the employees at Nike that turned the business into what it was,? she said in an interview. ?If they didn?t have the savvy, it would have been just another drawing.?

Davidson did eventually get paid, though. In 1983, when Nike made it to the stock market, Phil Knight gave her a diamond ring in the shape of the swoosh and an envelope stuffed with stock shares that would be worth more than $600,000 today.

Little Richard playing at the halftime show

Little Richard

Little Richard was the king of rock ?n? roll ? and this isn?t up for debate. The iconic performer not only brought us ?Tutti Frutti? and ?Lucille,? but inspired artists from Paul McCartney to Mick Jagger. He was also scammed out of royalties by a record company.

In 1984, Little Richard sued Specialty Records for more than $100 million. The company bought ?Tutti Frutti? for $50 and offered the singer a contract that would give him only a half-cent for each record sold. In addition, he received no royalties when the songs Specialty owned were used in movies or covered by white singers ? an unconscionable but common practice at the time. He claimed to have made no royalties from the company since he left them in 1959.

The singer and the record company settled outside of court.

A happy looking Coffee Cup on a brown rustic table.

The Creator of the Smiley Face

Do you ever think about who created some of our most enduring social symbols? Sometimes it feels like they just materialized out of thin air or have just?always been around. Like the smiley face.

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