{"id":627929,"date":"2026-04-25T15:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T15:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/627929\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T15:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T15:11:09","slug":"black-sabbath-regain-ownership-of-historically-important-early-earth-demos-after-legal-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/627929\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Sabbath regain ownership of “historically important” early Earth demos after legal battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

A legal battle concerning Black Sabbath<\/a>\u2019s early demos has been resolved, with all four members regaining ownership of the songs they recorded as Earth in 1969.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Ozzy Osbourne, 1948-2025: culture-smashing revolutionary that redefined rock and reality TV<\/a><\/p>\n

Last summer, it was announced that a compilation of demos recorded by Ozzy Osbourne<\/a>,\u00a0Tony Iommi<\/a>, Geezer Butler<\/a>, and Bill Ward in 1969, when they still went by the name Earth,\u00a0was to be released under the title \u2018Earth: The Legendary Lost Tapes\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The tracks were recorded in Zella Studios in Birmingham, with a new release said to be overseen by Jim Simpson, the band\u2019s manager at the time, with an initial release date of July last year.<\/p>\n

That release did not materialise, and Sharon Osbourne spoke out against the project at the time<\/a>, issuing a lengthy social media post in which she outlined the Black Sabbath legal position, which disputes the legal ownership of the recordings.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you know, the band do not want these tapes released, not least as they haven\u2019t heard them despite you saying you would provide copies long ago,\u201d Sharon wrote to Simpson in July. \u201cYou know that, as a band, Black Sabbath don\u2019t take things lying down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five months after going public with the demo dispute, Sharon announced on The Osbournes podcast that the situation had been resolved, with the four members of Black Sabbath \u2013 Osbourne, Iommi, Butler, and Ward \u2013 regaining control of the Earth recordings.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe settled with Jim Simpson and the band now have their demos back,\u201d she said (via Blabbermouth<\/a>). \u201cAnd all four of them 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna talk about what everybody wants to do with it, and we\u2019ll go from there,\u201d Sharon told her son Jack, adding that Simpson \u201cdid the right thing at the end of the day\u201d.<\/p>\n

While demos won\u2019t be released as planned, Sharon did say she was open to putting out the Earth recordings at some point, depending on the band\u2019s approval. \u201cI just think it\u2019s historically important, for music lovers of that genre,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s special. And I\u2019m just happy that it\u2019s where it should be \u2014 with the band, and [they can decide] what they wanna do as a band, what they\u2019re gonna do with it. So that\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n

It comes after the legacy of Osbourne was celebrated once again by\u00a0Yungblud<\/a> at a show in Birmingham earlier this week<\/a> (April 23).<\/p>\n

The Doncaster artist (real name Dominic Harrison) played at the Utilita Arena in the late Prince Of Darkness\u2019 hometown, as part of\u00a0his current UK and Ireland \u2018Idols\u2019 tour<\/a>, which\u00a0kicked off in Sheffield last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Harrison treated the crowd in Birmingham to a particularly poignant rendition of\u00a0his cover of Black Sabbath\u2019s \u2018Changes\u2019<\/a>. In the intro, the video screen showed some fans holding up a sign that read: \u201cOzzy would be proud.\u201d The audience also chanted Osbourne\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

Yungblud performed at\u00a0Black Sabbath<\/a>\u2019s final-ever show, held in Birmingham last summer, where\u00a0he gifted Osbourne a custom-made gold cross<\/a>. He subsequently\u00a0officially released his cover of \u2018Changes\u2019<\/a>, and\u00a0\u201cvow[ed] to play this song every night for the rest of my life\u201d<\/a>.\u00a0Tom Morello<\/a>, who served as the musical director of Sabbath\u2019s last gig, revealed this year that\u00a0Yungblud \u201cwasn\u2019t gonna be the singer of that song\u201d \u2013 just 48-hours before he took to the stage at Villa Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Harrison\u00a0paid tribute to the icon at the MTV VMAs 2025<\/a>\u00a0last September. Speaking to\u00a0NME\u00a0in the summer,\u00a0Yungblud said: \u201cOzzy was always my north star<\/a>\u00a0[\u2026] Ozzy was a character in my life who was a reflection of everything I went through.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair had struck up a friendship after\u00a0both Osbourne and his wife and manager, Sharon, made cameo appearances in Yungblud\u2019s video for \u2018Funeral\u2019<\/a>. Yungblud appeared on a 2024 episode of\u00a0The Osbournes Podcast<\/a>\u00a0with Sharon and Kelly, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A legal battle concerning Black Sabbath\u2019s early demos has been resolved, with all four members regaining ownership of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,2527,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-627929","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-metal","12":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}