<
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20211229/15264048198/eric-clapton-pretends-to-regret-decision-to-sue-random-german-woman-who-listed-bootleg-one-his-cds-ebay.shtml>
"There is no greater example of just how totally broken copyright is than the
story of Eric Clapton suing — and winning — a poor German woman for copyright
infringement after she listed (
but did not sell) a bootleg CD that her late
husband had purchased in a store. The woman had no idea it was a bootleg. She
just knew that she had the CD and wanted to sell it, so she put it on eBay.
Eric Clapton — who has been a despicably awful human being for decades — sued
her over this and won. He won, despite the fact that (1) she hadn't bought the
CD, and was just selling her late husband's CD, (2) she had no idea it wasn't
authorized, (3) she didn't actually sell it, as she quickly pulled down the
listing, and (4) it was just one damn CD and she listed it for less than $12.
And not only that, under German copyright law, she was told she also needed to
pay Clapton's legal fees.
Lots of people (reasonably) got mad about Clapton for pursuing this case, and
we'll get to that in a moment, but you should also be furious about copyright
laws. Because that's what makes this sort of absolute nonsense not just
possible, but plainly encouraged.
We've pointed out in the past that one of the biggest problems of copyright in
the internet age is that it was designed for a time when "infringement"
generally had to mean deliberate attempts
by commercial entities to copy
someone else's work and profit off of it. The internet has laid bare just how
unfit for purpose copyright is by suddenly turning us all into lawbreakers many
times over every single day. At that point, it should be obvious that it's the
law that's the main problem."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
