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Osbourne sues for cut of Black Sabbath name
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 1 June 2009
Ozzy Osbourne is suing bandmate Tony Iommi for a slice of the Black Sabbath trademark. Iommi, the band’s only consistent member throughout its forty year history, acquired complete ownership of the Black Sabbath name in the eighties. Until recently this fact didn’t seem to bother Ozzy, or manager wife Sharon, too much, even though Osbourne is obviously the most high profile of all the people to have been in the seminal metal band over the years.
That said, Osbourne now claims that he has been trying to negotiate a share of the Black Sabbath trademark off Iommi for the best part of three years, and says he has only launched legal proceedings because out of court negotiations have failed. The lawsuit seems to say that Iommi’s original claim to complete ownership of the Black Sabbath name was false, adding that the value of the band’s brand in 2009 has a lot to do with the management of it by the Osbourne clan since Ozzy returned as the outfit’s (almost) full time frontman in 1997.
The lawsuit is looking for a 50% stake in the trademark, plus a cut of the money Iommi made using the name pre-1997 (from the early 90s era mainly, I think). Despite that fact, Osbourne is reported as saying he’d like the Black Sabbath name to be owned equally by the band’s four founder and current members, so that’s Geezer Butler and Bill Ward as well as Osbourne and Iommi.
Iommi is yet to respond.
