Democracy Dies in Darkness

Eric Clapton sued a woman who listed a bootleg CD on eBay for $11. She now owes thousands.

Eric Clapton performs at the Gas South Arena in Atlanta on Sept. 23. (Robb Cohen/Invision/AP)

When a German woman listed an Eric Clapton CD on eBay over the summer, she thought the rock music purchased by her late husband decades earlier could fetch her around $11 in the online marketplace if she was lucky.

Instead, it somehow got the attention of Clapton, who sued the woman for copyright infringement and accused her of selling a bootleg CD of one of his live shows from the 1980s. Now, the 55-year-old widow, who did not sell the CD and claimed she did not know it was a bootleg, owes thousands of dollars in court fees.