Judge dismisses copyright lawsuit against Mariah Carey's 'All I Want For Christmas is You'
Judge dismisses copyright lawsuit against Mariah Carey's 'All I Want For Christmas is You'
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Taylor Swift, Mariah Carey, Lady Gaga and win iHeartRadio Awards
Taylor Swift, Mariah Carey, Lady Gaga and more took home wins at the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards.
A federal judge in Los Angeles sided with Mariah Carey in a lawsuit alleging she illegally copied elements of her holiday classic "All I Want For Christmas Is You" from a song of the same name that released three years prior.
Louisiana songwriter Andy Stone, who professionally goes by Vince Vance, and Tennessee native Troy Powers claim they wrote their "All I Want For Christmas Is You" in 1988 and released in 1989. Carey released her megahit just ahead of the 1994 holiday season, which has since received routine mass popularity every year.
On Nov. 1, 2023, the pair filed a $20 million lawsuit against the pop star, co-writer Walter Afanasieff and label Sony Music Entertainment. The suit alleged Carey's song copied melodies, lyrics and other musical elements including the song's "extended comparison between a loved one and trappings of seasonal luxury."
However, U.S. District Judge Monica Almadani ruled Wednesday that music experts could not prove enough objective similarity between the two songs through what's called an extrinsic test.
Almadani granted Carey's request for summary judgment without the need to go to trial agreeing with the defense's claims that the 1994 song uses common tropes associated with Christmas songs that existed prior to 1989.
USA TODAY has reached out to representatives for Carey, Afanasieff and Sony Music for comment on the ruling.
Attorney representing lawsuit call ruling disappointing
Stone and Power's attorney Gerald Fox called the Wednesday ruling a "disappointment," adding that most music copyright cases meet a similar outcome. He said his client is considering bringing the litigation to the Circuit Court level over the next week.
The court dismissed testimonies by Fox's musicology experts Dr. Matthew Sakakeeny and Robert W. Fink, therefore leaving the defense's arguments unrebutted.
"Our client retained two of the most accomplished experts teaching music at two of the United States top universities and did not file until in a blind process both opined that there was infringement," Fox said in a statement to USA TODAY. "Sadly, it appears that the district courts routinely dismiss most plaintiff's copyright cases."
Fox has formerly represented clients who sued Taylor Swift for copyright infringement over the song "Shake It Off" in a case that ended with an undisclosed settlement.
What did the lawsuit say?
The lawsuit is Vance's second to be dismissed after he filed and later dropped the first one in 2022 with allegations focused on "unique linguistic structure."
The latest suit alleged that Vance and Powers' version of the song charted several times throughout the '90s, implying Carey and Afanasieff "undoubtedly had access" to take components of it.
They also alleged the pair had copied the title of the song arguing that "in 1988 it was, in context, distinctive. Moreover, the combination of the specific chord progression in the melody paired with the verbatim hook was a greater than 50% clone of Vance's original work, in both lyric choice and chord expressions."
Vance alleged his song charted on the Billboard Hot Country Chart in January of 1994, nine months before Carey's song debuted.
"(This) points to the overwhelming likelihood that Carey and Afanasieff both career musicians and songwriters, who knew the importance of charting on Billboard, had access to the Vance work prior to the composition of the infringing work in question," according to the lawsuit.
Contributing: Mary Walrath-Holdridge, USA TODAY
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