One of the most popular holiday songs of all time is challenged by a country music songwriter who claims copyright infringement on “all I Want for Christmas Is You. “
Mariah Carey and co-writer Walter Afanciev in the lawsuit By songwriter Andy Stone, who claims the song “All I Want For Christmas Is You” Vince Vance & The Valiant From 1989. Stone filed his papers in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
While the songs have the same title, there is only a hint of Carrey’s tone or lyrics beyond the title recall.
Carey was released in 1994 and became a top radio hit and the annual NBA Games list on Christmas Day.
Stone claims that his song received heavy airtime during the 1993 holiday season. He is claiming $20 million in damages. Stone alleges that Carrey and Avancev “willfully engaged in a campaign to infringe his copyrights to the work.
The country songwriter faces an uphill battle to prove his claims.
Pamela Koslin, a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in music and intellectual property rights, pointed out this 177 worksmany of which are music tracks, titled All I Want For Christmas Is You.
Koslin indicated that she would get a different answer if all the words were “pretty much the same” as Carrey’s version.
“Song titles do not have the right to copyright protection,” Koslin added. “That’s why there are 177 works that use the same title. The most well-known title is My Child, which includes 4,860 works registered with the Copyright Office. And that doesn’t even count ‘common law’ (unrecorded) works that use the same title.”
Curry’s version of the song has over a billion streams on Spotify alone. Last year, it became the number one single on three separate tours on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart.