Mariah Carey wins copyright dispute over ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’

Christmas comes early for Mariah Carey as copyright lawsuit is tossed out

Mariah Carey got a reason to celebrate as she won the lawsuit.

People reported that on March 19, a Los Angeles court dismissed the copyright infringement lawsuit, filed by Andy Stone and Troy Powers, alleging that Carey’s All I Want From Christmas is You copied their 1989 country song of the same name.

Judge Monica Almadani ruled that there was not enough evidence to support the claim that Carey copied their song.

“Defendants knew or should have known that All I Want for Christmas Is You could not be used in a musical work by Defendants without a license and/or songwriting credit, as is customary practice in the music industry,” the court documents read.

Stone and Powers sought $20 million in damages and a jury trial, but the court found their case —claiming Carey’s version of the song imitated the “compositional structure” of their ballad— insufficient to proceed.

After analysing the two songs’ lyrics, Dr. Lawrence Ferrara, a musicologist, professor of Music, and Director Emeritus of all studies in Music and the Performing Arts at New York University, concluded that the songs are different enough in melody, harmony, rhythm, and lyrics to not infringe on copyright.

Notably, this wasn’t the first time Carey’s 1994 hit song faced such a lawsuit.

Stone and Powers filed a similar case in Louisiana for $20 million in June 2022, alleging “copyright infringement and unjust enrichment,” but they dropped it in November.