Mariah Carey has won the legal victory over controversial holiday song copyright allegations.
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Mariah Carey won a high-profile copyright battle after a federal judge in Los Angeles dismissed her holiday classic “I want everything you want for Christmas is you” and violated another song.
U.S. District Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani issued her ruling Wednesday, confirming that Carey’s seasonal anthem in 1994 did not have enough similarities to the 1989 track.
The lawsuit was originally filed in November 2023, seeking at least $20 million in damages from Carey, her co-author Walter Afanasieff and its record label Sony Music.
Powers and Stone allegedly Carey had illegally copied their early work, marking the second attempt by Stone’s legal team to seek copyright claims against popular superstars.
However, Judge Almadani argued that the plaintiff lacked merits, citing an expert analysis by a musicologist who came up with a common holiday musical theme for the two songs.
The judge specifically noted that while both tracks contain “common Christmas cliches”, their chord structure and harmonic rhythm were “very different.”
Judge Almadani wrote in her ruling: “Based on the above provisions, the plaintiffs did not assume the burden that demonstrated that Carey and Vance were substantially similar in external testing.”
The judge further criticized Stone and his attorney for making “freckless legal arguments” in the complaint, including “insignificant statements of fact.”
As a result, the plaintiff was ordered to reimburse Carey to compensate her for some of the legal expenses in her defense.
The festival hits written by Carey and Afanasieff have become synonymous with the Christmas season, regularly surpassing music charts worldwide and generating substantial revenue each year.
The song has been streamed billions of times and remains one of the most well-known festival music of all time.
Carey, Sony Music and the plaintiff’s representatives have not commented on the ruling publicly.
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