If it’s November 1st, it’s Christmas. At least that’s what Mariah Carey thinks and takes advantage of, immediately after the end of the Halloween celebrations, making her appeal to the world that it’s time (“It’s timeeee!” she sings) for the Christmas holidays to come and in which there is no His most famous song, All I Want For Christmas Is You, is not embedded. This year she did it too, in a funny video in which several people in Halloween costumes are seen melting a block of ice that she is trapped in, and how it transforms everything into an ideal (and Christmassy) world. . But on the same day that waiting for Carey’s video is a minor tradition she introduces into the holiday festivities, the singer received a less pleasant surprise than the annual string of praises and her resulting earnings. Composer and musician Andy Stone sued her for plagiarism, and he also did so because of her star song. And he’s asking for no less than $20 million (18.9 million euros).
As media outlets including Rolling Stone and People reported, Stone filed a lawsuit in a California court on Wednesday. It is the second consecutive complaint by the composer, a member of the group Vince Vance & the Valiants, against Carey for the same reason and over the same matter in a short period of time. The lawsuit was filed in a Louisiana court in June 2022 but was dismissed just five months later. Now he comes with new lawyers and further allegations.
More information
Stone is re-entering the fray, suing Mariah Carey, Walter Afanasieff, who composed the song with her, and Sony Music Entertainment for “copyright infringement and unjust enrichment,” claiming they have owned one of her songs, also called All I Want , copied for “Christmas Is You,” which he composed in Nashville in 1989. The now 54-year-old New York artist’s success came four years later, in 1994. Stone co-signs the lawsuit with someone who also helped him write “The Subject,” musician Troy Powers.
In it, Andy Stone admits that the song is musically different but the title is the same and that Carey never asked for permission to use the song and that he received “undeserved advantages” as a result. That wouldn’t be illegal; According to the BBC, there are 177 songs registered under the title “All I Want For Christmas Is You” in the United States. But the musician also asserts that the “structure of the composition” and also certain “unique linguistic structures” are the same in Carey’s and his own, although he acknowledges that he did not invent the central phrase that gives the song its title. And he explains that therefore they should not have used it without his consent.
In Stone’s lawsuit, he claims that his song became a Christmas hit in 1993, that it was played frequently on the radio to the extent that it was on Billboard’s list of top country songs in 1994, and that both “given its great commercial” and more cultural Success” it became an inspiration for the artist. So much so that it was precisely that year that Carey – who always assured that composing the song was quick and that he did it largely on a cheap Casio piano – released the work, which became an immense worldwide success, which has already won more than one reached billion listeners.
On this occasion, Andy Stone and Troy Powers will be advised by the law firm Gerard P. Fox, according to Billboard, who also litigated on behalf of two songwriters who accused singer Taylor Swift of allegedly plagiarizing Shake It Off. This case was concluded with a confidential agreement in December 2022 after five years of litigation.
According to Forbes, the song had already brought the New York singer more than $60 million in profits in 2016, to which she added two to three more each holiday season. It has sold more than 10 million copies over the course of its career and has been an absolute success since it hit the charts 29 years ago. In addition, it experienced a resurgence three years ago when American artist Kelly Clarkson released a version in 2020 that became a hit, and Carey has since used it even more with videos and content on her social networks. Statistics show that her searches and visits increase every December and the success is so great that in March 2021 the artist tried To the name Queen Of Christmas in order to make even more money from the cause. In November 2022, the US Patent and Trademark Office rejected it. Mariah Carey will be a big part of Mariah Carey, but Christmas remains everyone’s realm for now.