Black Sabbath members settle lawsuit out of trial
Following a year-long lawsuit between Ozzy Osbourne and Tony Iommi regarding the ownership of the band name ‘Black Sabbath,’ the longtime band mates have called off the trial.
In 1968, Osbourne and Iommi (as well as Geezer Butler and Bill Ward) founded Black Sabbath, though Osbourne was fired in 1979 and replaced by Ronnie James Dio. After the band members had changed about a dozen times, the original four founding members came back together in 1997 and continued to perform until their last tour in 2005.
This is where it gets tricky: Iommi filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Signature Network in December 2008. In that lawsuit, Iommi said that the other three founding members–Osbourne, Butler and Ward–had given up their rights to the band name back in the 80s.
Osbourne then filed a lawsuit against Iommi in May 2009 and requested that he get a 50 percent interest in the “Black Sabbath” trademark and some additional, unspecified damages.
Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 2:47 pm by jordan
Tags: Bill Ward, black sabbath, Black Sabbath lawsuit, black sabbath tour, Geezer Butler, ozzy osbourne, Signature Network lawsuit, Tony Iommi
