Bob Daisley Talks Ozzy Osbourne Lawsuit
The acrimonious history between Ozzy Osbourne and his former bassist and songwriting partner Bob Daisley added another chapter when Daisley took Osbourne to court for unpaid royalties earlier this month — and now Daisley is responding to accusations of "harassment" from the Osbournes.
Daisley delved into his reasons for filing suit in an interview with Joel Gausten, and it's well worth reading in full for anyone who wants a clear picture of how performers and songwriters are paid for their efforts. After breaking down the difference between performance and songwriting royalties, Daisley moves on to an explanation of synchronization fees, which seem to be at the heart of his current complaint — specifically that the Osbournes' publishing company Blizzard Music, which maintains Daisley's works for Ozzy, has been underpaying them while skimming additional administrative fees from what he's owed.
"I haven't been getting all my sync fees, and Blizzard Music has been taking a higher percentage off the top than the contract I have with them allows them to take," explained Daisley. "When a publisher collects royalties and pays the writers, they take a percentage as their administrative payment for doing it – but here the Osbournes have been taking 25 percent rather than the 10 percent I agreed to."
Laughing off the Osbournes' press release, which called the lawsuit "tantamount to harassment," Daisley objected to their characterization of him as a retired musician who's likely just out for a payday. Pointing out that he's currently in the studio as part of a tribute to guitarist Gary Moore, he retorted, "I wouldn’t care if I had $50 trillion – if somebody’s taking advantage of me, I want to put a stop to it. ... I'm not harassing anybody. I have had to resort to legal action to get the money they owe me. And I look forward to all of the true facts coming out in the lawsuit."
Arguing that "there was enough money and enough success to pay everybody fairly and honestly," Daisley said he didn't begrudge Osbourne his success and insisted he'd really rather not have to deal with the inconvenience of going to court. And as for why he's only now taking legal action? "The answer is simple," he said. "The Osbournes were good at hiding what they were doing, and it was only relatively recently that I found out what was happening to me."
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