Classic rock guitarist and English singer-songwriter Eric Clapton emerged victorious in a recent lawsuit against a widow who tried to sell a bootleg Clapton CD owned by her late husband on eBay, as Rolling Stone and several other music outlets reported this week.
The suit seems like a reactionary move from the 76-year-old Clapton, who lately appears intent on alienating a portion of his fans by refusing to play shows where COVID-19 vaccination is required and calling pandemic safety rules “propaganda.” The musician known as “Slowhand” recently aligned with fellow singer Van Morrison in that regard.
The woman in the suit, a 55-year-old German named Gabriele, inherited the unofficial Eric Clapton – Live USA album that her husband purchased around 1986. But after she listed it on eBay in July, she received a takedown notice from the auction website followed by an affidavit from Clapton’s lawyers claiming the recording was made without the musician’s consent.
“They told me Eric Clapton had complained,” Gabriele explained to German newspaper Bild last month. “The CD is said to have been recorded illegally. I received a warning first, then the ruling. My husband bought the CD in a department store, not … under the counter.”
She’s now been ordered to pay a nearly $4,000 fine.
In a November interview with anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the lawyer’s The Defender podcast, Clapton seemed to suggest that friends in his personal life are currently diminishing in the much the same way some of his fans appear to be nowadays.
The guitarist said, “Over the past year, there’s been a lot of disappearing — little dust around with people moving away quite quickly. And it has, for me, refined the kind of friendships I have. And it’s dwindled down to the people that I obviously really need and love.”
Clapton’s views aren’t news, however. Back in 1976, he infamously delivered a racist rant onstage in England.
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