Mariah Carey Asks Judge To Toss “All I Want For Christmas Is You” Lawsuit
Mariah Carey is looking to get an “All I Want For Christmas Is You” lawsuit tossed almost a year after being sued. Billboard reports that the songbird’s attorneys have moved to get Vince Vance’s suit dismissed, as he claims that Carey stole the concept for her smash single from his band, Vince Vance and the Valiants.
Vince filed his suit in November 2023, which accused the songstress of copyright infringement. The suit argued that Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” “was a greater than 50% clone…in both lyric choice and chord expressions” of their track of the same name, first released in 1989. Troy Plaintiff joined Vance in his initial suit, claiming to have co-written the 1989 song along with Vance.
MC’s legal team argued that Vince Vance and Mariah Carey’s songs simply share similar foundational music workings and nothing more. Additionally, Mariah’s legal team and “All I Want” co-writer Walter Afanasieff argued against Vance and Plaintiff’s claims, stating that they failed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal’s “extrinsic test for substantial similarity in protectable expression.” Layman’s terms translation: the songs share coincidental similarities.
“Plaintiffs’ claimed similarities between Vance and Carey are unprotectable…because they are, among other things, fragmentary and commonplace building blocks of expression that Vance and Carey use differently in their overall different lyrics and music,” legal docs filed by Carey’s team on Monday (Aug. 12) read.
Vance’s initial claims insisted that Carey’s smash hit and his 1989 song share a “unique linguistic structure.” The musician, né Andy Stone, argued that even the phrase “all I want for Christmas is you” is stolen and was a “distinctive” phrase back in the 80s.
However, Mariah Carey’s party disputed these claims, asserting that there is a “lack of competent evidence that the songs share any protectable expression.”
“The claimed similarities are an unprotectable jumble of elements: a title and hook phrase used by many earlier Christmas songs, other commonplace words, phrases, and Christmas tropes like ‘Santa Claus’ and ‘mistletoe,’ and a few unprotectable pitches and chords randomly scattered throughout these completely different songs,” Carey’s lawyers contended.
Listen to both songs above.
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