Mariah Carey does it again and reminds you why she's the undisputed Queen of Christmas. The pop icon won a heated legal battle over her evergreen holiday anthem, "All I Want for Christmas Is You," in which a Los Angeles federal judge threw out copyright infringement claims.
The lawsuit, filed in November 2023, alleged that Carey had illegally copied a song from 1989 with the same title, written by the songwriters Troy Powers and Andy Stone (known at the time as Vince Vance). The plaintiffs sought $20 million from Carey, her longtime collaborator Walter Afanasieff and Sony Music.
But U.S. District Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani was not persuaded. In her ruling Wednesday, she found that Carey's classic 1994 holiday song had no substantial similarity to the earlier track. Beneath the 12 Days of Christmas, however, a musicologist's expert analysis has concluded that though both songs share common holiday themes, the melodies, chord structures, and harmonic progressions themselves are wholly different.
Judge Almadani also noted that the argument leaned entirely on "generic Christmas song clichés." And sufficient similarity to protect breaks the festive spirit, she said, wasn't enough to support copyright infringement. "having considered the above, plaintiffs have not satisfied their burden of establishing that Carey and Vance are substantially similar under the extrinsic test," she wrote in her ruling.
In what dealt a further blow to the plaintiffs, the judge also criticized Stone's legal strategy, calling his lawyers' arguments "frivolous," and found that their complaint contained "irrelevant and unsupported statements of fact." As a result, they were ordered to pay Carey back for one of her legal expenses.
With billions of streams and annual chart comebacks, 'All I Want for Christmas Is You' has established itself as a holiday anthem, earning tens of millions in revenue every Christmas season. Written by Carey, alongside her collaborator Walter Afanasieff, the song has become one of the most famous and beloved Christmas songs in history. It makes news every holiday season when it returns to No. 1 on the charts.
This is not the first time Carey has encountered legal trouble over her holiday hit. Stone and his team had previously filed a lawsuit that was also dismissed. The legal battle was well fought, but this time, the courts have again ruled in the superstar's favor, reiterating that her legendary song has its own merit.
Neither Carey nor the company that owns her music catalog, 'Sony Music,' have made any public statements at this time regarding the victory. Still, fans and music industry insiders call this court ruling a massive triumph for artists who build original creations that share a title with previous tracks.
With the lawsuit officially over, Mariah Carey can now do what she does best: spread holiday cheer and remind everyone that the world simply cannot have Christmas without their holiday queen's song. This much we know: 'All I Want for Christmas Is You' is here to stay, and no courtroom battle can prevent that.
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