10 World-Changing Inventions That Were Total Rip-Offs

5. Daisuke Inoue Got Nothing For Inventing Karaoke

Love it or hate it, karaoke has become a staple of drunken work nights out, birthdays and awkward attempts to get your parents to enjoy video games. Like any great technological innovation (especially the annoying ones) karaoke has its roots in Japan, where it's a multi-million dollar industry and a particular favourite of over-worked salarymen blowing off some steam at the end of a week. The karaoke machine was the invention of Daisuke Inoue who, in his youth, played in a band that gave musical accompaniment to businesspeople who wanted to sing in bars. He came up with the karaoke machine as a means of providing this backing track without the need for anything more than a box you punched the codes of cheesy eighties pop songs into, before slaughtering your Cyndi Lauper slow jam of choice. The idea began to take off after he started renting home-made machines outfitted with tapes and amplifiers to bars in Kobe. That was in 1971. Now, Inoue doesn't see a dime off of karaoke machines, having failed to patent the idea which gave birth to a booming worldwide industry. In this case, it was no particular entity or person who ripped Inoue off €“ it's just that everyone was free to manufacturer their own karaoke machines. At least he patented a form of pesticide used to clean those machines, which he makes a living off.