A legal dispute that erupted over the ownership of Black Sabbath‘s early demos has been resolved. You may recall last year that that the rights to those recordings were being disputed by Sharon Osbourne, widow of Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne and a longtime key player behind the scenes of the Black Sabbath camp.
Black Sabbath‘s early manager Jim Simpson had intended to release those 1969 recordings as “Earth: The Legendary Lost Tapes“, given Sabbath had recorded them during their earlier incarnation as Earth. Sharon however disputed Simpson’s claims over ownership over the recordings, and warring statements ensured. By last November, the dispute was already 18 months in.
Speaking on this week’s episode of ‘The Osbournes‘ podcast, Sharon confirmed that battle for the demos had been resolved, with the band now retaining the rights to them. Sharon stated:
“We settled with Jim Simpson and the band now have their demos back… And all four of them [Black Sabbath] own it, which is where it should be. All of that stuff should be theirs. So it all ended well. So yeah, they own them, and we’re gonna talk about what everybody wants to do with it, and we’ll go from there.”
After agreeing with her son Jack that the demos sounded “very different”, Sharon went on to say, “I just think it’s historically important for music lovers of that genre. And then we got [the rights for] the pictures that were taken at that time too. So, that is all so important…”
She added, “And I’m just happy that it’s where it should be — with the band, and [they can decide] what they wanna do as a band, what they’re going to do with it. So that’s great.”
