Mariah Carey is being sued over alleged copyright infringement with her classic holiday record “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”
Country singer Andy Stone—who performs under the stage name Vince Vance with the band Vince Vance and the Valiants—refiled the suit against Carey, co-writer Walter Afanasieff, and Sony Music Entertainment in Los Angeles’ federal court this past Wednesday after its dismissal in New Orleans last year. Stone, along with plaintiff Troy Powers, are seeking $20 million in damages.
According to Billboard, Vance made similar accusations as he did in his previous lawsuit, claiming that Carey’s Christmas chart-topper infringed the copyrights to his 1989 song of the exact same name.
In the suit, Stone claims that his song, released with the band Vince Vance & The Valiants, received radio play in 1993 before becoming a hit on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart the following year, around the same time Carey’s hit was released.
The filing also claims that Carey copied the “compositional structure” of Stone’s song. However, it acknowledges that the phrase “all I want for Christmas is you” was not originated by Stone.
“The phrase ‘all I want for Christmas is you’ may seem like a common parlance today, in 1988 it was, in context, distinctive,” Vance’s new attorneys wrote. “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.”
Stone is being represented by Gerard P. Fox, a lawyer who represented two songwriters in a similar case against Taylor Swift and her song “Shake It Off,” which resulted in an undisclosed settlement in 2022.
Since its release on her iconic Merry Christmas album, Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” has received yearly radio play, topped the Billboard Hot 100, and been certified Diamond by the RIAA with more than 10 million records sold.