Mariah Carey hit with plagiarism lawsuit over her track 'All I Want For Christmas Is You'
Popstar Mariah Carey has landed herself in legal trouble after being accused of plagiarising the hit track 'All I Want for Christmas is You'.
- Entertainment News
- 2 min read
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Popstar Mariah Carey has landed herself in legal trouble after being accused of plagiarising the hit track All I Want for Christmas is You. Songwriter Andy Stone has mentioned Carey and her co-writer Walter Afansieff in the lawsuit, which claims his song All I Want For Christmas Is You by Vince Vance & the Valiants from 1989 is being infringed, according to Deadline.
In the legal documents filed at the US District Court in the Eastern District of Louisiana, Stone mentioned how he never gave permission for the track to be used. For the uninitiated, Mariah Carey released the song in 1994 as part of her album Merry Christmas, and it has since become a festival favourite.
Mariah Carey hit with plagiarism lawsuit for the song All I Want For Christmas Is You
Andy Stone is now asking for $20 million in damages, claiming that Mariah and Afansieff "knowingly, willfully, and intentionally engaged in a campaign to infringe" his copyright for the track. As per the documents accessed by the PA news agency, the defendants have been blamed for committing “acts of unjust enrichment by the unauthorised appropriation of plaintiff’s work and the goodwill associated therewith”.
According to Deadline, a Los Angeles attorney specialising in music and intellectual property rights, Pamela Koslyn noted that 'song titles aren't entitled to copyright protection'. She also noted that there are 177 works, mostly musical compositions falling under the title All I Want For Christmas Is You.
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Mariah Carey's 1994 album Merry Christmas was released by Columbia Records. It went on to become one of the most loved Christmas curations of all time, being recognised as the best-selling US Christmas album of all time. It has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. Carey's version of the track has beyond 1 billion streams on Spotify itself. In 2021, it also became the first song 'to be a No. 1 hit in three separate runs on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart'.
Mariah Carey has to her credit famous albums like Music Box and Daydream as well as songs like Hero, Without You, Fantasy, Always Be My Baby and One Sweet Day.