You’re probably aware of the whole Black Sabbath debacle with drummer Bill Ward and the reasons behind him not taking part of the latest reunion. Several reasons have been thrown left and right but it’s basically a money issue and, considering the estate Black Sabbath has, we are sure it was a considerable amount of money. But it appears that those money issues are extending to the sides as now Ozzy Osbourne is being sued by his former bassist over unpaid royalties.
Bassist Bob Daisley, who played with Ozzy Osbourne for the first two albums of his solo career, is suing over unpaid royalties for the song “Crazy Train” which he co-wrote along with late guitarist Randy Rhoads. The allegations of the $2 million lawsuit, state:
“Although royalties have been paid to Daisley over the years, an audit conducted in 2014 showed that Osbourne and his company had been improperly deducting undisclosed fees before distributing royalties to Daisley and improperly withholding Daisley’s rightful share of royalties owed under the publishing agreements for the commercial exploitations of the songs.
“While Mr. Osbourne was benefiting from the songs co-authored by our client, the audit shows that he was systematically short-changing Mr. Daisley,” said Daisley’s lawyer Alan Howard. “Mr. Daisley had no choice but to bring this action to secure his fair share of the proceeds those songs have generated.”
This isn’t the first time Daisley and Osbourne are facing each other in court. Back in the late 90’s, Daisley sued Osbourne over the writing credits on both albums Dairy of a Madman and Blizzard of Ozz which was discarded by the Los Angeles Federal Court in 2002. According to Daisley, Sharon Osbourne was involved in the dismissal and complications of the case:
I found out that Sharon and Ozzy were receiving our royalties from those albums, so we sued them. And that went on for a while. And Don Arden was going to help Lee and me fighting the case for our royalties. But when Sharon found out that her father was helping us — I mean, she hadn’t spoken to him for something like eighteen years or something — all of a sudden she made up with him. And he stopped helping us and went against us and that was the end of our case.
For now, we just have to wait and see if this time around, Daisley’s case will proceed or if it will meet the same end as his previous attempts.
[via blabbermouth.net]
