Country singer Andy Stone is suing the “Queen Of Christmas” for the second time.
Slowly but surely the time is coming again when Mariah Carey’s Christmas hit “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is playing on all the radios. It’s probably the most popular song of the festive season, the lyrics of which anyone could recite in their sleep. But the creator probably won’t get into the Christmas spirit at first. Because the singer is now faced with a copyright lawsuit – for the second time in a row.
Back in June 2022, country singer Andy Stone – who performs under the stage name Vince Vance – filed a lawsuit against the musician, claiming that her Christmas hit violated the copyright of his 1989 song of the same name. After the accusation was dropped a few months later, Stone filed a complaint in federal court in Los Angeles on November 1, 2023 filed a copyright lawsuit again. This time his occurs Songwriter Troy Powers appears as a co-plaintiff in the proceedings.
The accusation of plagiarism
Andy Stone’s version of “All I Want for Christmas is You” was recorded in 1989 and, according to him, was “played extensively” on US radio stations during the 1993 holiday season. A year later, Mariah Carey’s song of the same name was released, which – just like Stone’s track – tells the story of a woman who rejects “material Christmas gifts” and instead looks for a “beloved” partner, according to the country musician, whose real name is Andrew Franichevic and called Carey’s work plagiarism. Both the melody and the lyrics and the feeling conveyed are copied.
Douglas M. Schmidt, the artist’s lawyer in the last case, spoke to ROLLING STONE about the legal dispute. “If you look at both songs, you can see that about 50 percent of the words are the same, in almost the same order. I think that’s a pretty strong claim,” said the lawyer. An attempt was made to resolve the case out of court, but without a satisfactory solution. “We are now pursuing financial closure through either settlement or trial,” Stone’s manager Jay Ceravolo said in a statement. “This is simply a case of copyright infringement.” Andy Stone is demanding $20 million (around €18.8 million) in damages from the singer.
Carey’s origin story is fictitious
This year’s lawsuit is almost identical to the last one. However, the current one also includes the claim that Carey made up the story of how she wrote the hit song. Her co-author, Walter Afanasieff, has also disputed this story in the past. Carey “fed off her work without a license with its implausible origin story as if it were her own,” the newly filed lawsuit says.
Vince Vance is represented in the current lawsuit by Gerard P. Fox, the same attorney who represented two songwriters who accused Taylor Swift of stealing the lyrics to her 2014 song “Shake It Off.” However, the lawsuit was dismissed before the hearing in December 2022. According to Vance’s new attorney, while the phrase “All I Want For Christmas Is You” would “seem like a common phrase today, in 1988 it was unique in context.” Mariah Carey did not comment on the allegations last year, nor has she said anything about the current lawsuit.
Carey’s version of “All I Want For Christmas Is You” reached number one on the US charts for the first time ever in 2019 – 25 years after its release in 1994. The single not only brings the singer millions in royalties every year According to Guinness World Records, the song is also the best-selling Christmas single by a solo artist in the USA.