Andy Stone, a musician from California, sued Mariah Carey in California for $20 million on Monday. He claimed that her holiday hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You” violated his copyright.
Stone, who is the lead singer of Vince Vance & the Valiants co-wrote the song, also called “All I Want For Christmas is You”, in 1989. Stone claimed that Carey’s team copied the “compositional structures” of his song, according to the complaint.
The court documents stated that Carey had “directly copied” lyrics from Stone’s 1989 smash hit, and “approximately 50 percent” of the song was infringing on copyright.
Stone said that Carey’s team “undoubtedly had access” to his version of “All I Want for Christmas is You”, due to “its wide commercial and cultural success.” Stone’s version of “All I Want for Christmas is You” charted on Billboard for many years. His band also performed it at an appearance at The White House during the spring of 1994, the same year Carey released her song.
According to court documents, the White House performance brought Vince Vance and The Valiants song back onto the Billboard Hot Country Charts in 1994.
Stone’s complaint claimed that Carey had capitalized on her success in infringement. “‘All I want for Christmas is You’, has become an integral part of the popular culture and Carey’s fame has become synonymous with this season.”
Carey’s representative did not respond immediately to our comment request.
People magazine reported that Stone first sued Carey on June 20, 2022, in a Louisiana state court. Five months later he dropped the suit.
Carey’s 1994 Christmas hit is a staple of the holiday season. “All I Want For Christmas is You” was the top-selling song on Billboard Hot 100, and it has sold more than 10,000,000 copies.
Carey, who has been leveraging the success of “All I Want For Christmas is You”, has started teasing Christmas on social media. She shared a video on Wednesday announcing that “It’s Time” for the “All I want for Christmas is you” song.
The video of this year has been viewed over 70 million times and 2 million people have liked it on Instagram.
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In an interview with W Magazine, the singer-songwriter explained how this song was created.
Carey said that the idea to do a Christmas album came from her record label. Carey said, “I thought it was too early in my career to do that. But I loved Christmas. I had some sad Christmases when I was a kid, but I try to always find the bright side.”
She explained, “I wanted it to be timeless and classic. We didn’t use any sounds from that era.” “That would make it feel timeless and classic.
“But I never could have imagined it would be such a big part of my life.”
