Mariah Carey didn't steal 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' from other
writers, a judge says
[March 21, 2025]
By ANDREW DALTON
A federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled that Mariah Carey did not steal
her perennial megahit “All I Want for Christmas Is You" from other
songwriters.
Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani granted Carey's request for summary
judgment on Wednesday, giving her and co-writer and co-defendant Walter
Afanasieff a victory without going to trial.
In 2023, songwriters Andy Stone of Louisiana — who goes by the stage
name Vince Vance — and Troy Powers of Tennessee filed the $20 million
lawsuit alleging that Carey's 1994 song, which has since become a
holiday standard and annual streaming sensation, infringed the copyright
of their country 1989 song with the same title.
Their lawyer Gerard P. Fox said he's “disappointed" in an email to The
Associated Press.
Fox said it is his experience that judges at this level "nearly always
now dismiss a music copyright case and that one must appeal to reverse
and get the case to the jury. My client will make a decision shortly on
whether to appeal. We filed based on the opinions of two esteemed
musicologists who teach at great colleges."
Stone and Powers' suit said their “'All I Want For Christmas Is You'
contains a unique linguistic structure where a person, disillusioned
with expensive gifts and seasonal comforts, wants to be with their loved
one, and accordingly writes a letter to Santa Claus.”
They said there was an “overwhelming likelihood” Carey and Afanasieff
had heard their song — which at one point reached No. 31 on Billboard's
Hot Country chart — and infringed their copyright by taking significant
elements from it.
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Mariah Carey performs during a concert celebrating Dubai Expo 2020
One Year to Go in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on Oct. 20, 2019. (AP
Photo/Kamran Jebreili, File)
 After hearing from two experts for
each side, Ramírez Almadani agreed with those from the defense, who
said the writers employed common Christmas cliches that existed
prior to both songs, and that Carey's song used them differently.
She said the plaintiffs had not met the burden of showing that the
songs are substantially similar.
Ramírez Almadani also ordered sanctions against the plaintiffs and
their lawyers, saying their suit and subsequent filings were
frivolous and that the plaintiffs' attorneys “made no reasonable
effort to ensure that the factual contentions asserted have
evidentiary support.”
She said they must pay at least part of the defendants' attorney
fees.
Defense attorneys and publicists for Carey did not immediately
respond to a request for comment.
Carey's Christmas colossus has become an even bigger hit in recent
years than it was in the 1990s. It has reached No. 1 on Billboard’s
Hot 100 chart the past six years in a row — measuring the most
popular songs each week — not just the holiday-themed — by airplay,
sales and streaming.
Carey and Afanasieff have had their own public disagreement — though
not one that's gone to court — over who wrote how much of the song.
But the case made them at least temporary allies.
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