A The federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that Mariah Carey had not stolen her sustainable megahit “all I want for Christmas is you” of other songwriters.
Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani on Wednesday granted the summary judgment of Carey, giving him a victory and his co-scopenerist and co-accused Walter Afanasieff without being tried.
In 2023, Andy Stone’s songwriters of Louisiana – who bears the name of the Vince Vance – and Troy Powers of Tennessee filed the trial of $ 20 million alleging that Carey’s song in 1994, which has since become a standard of holidays and a feeling of annual streaming, violated the right of the song of their Country song 1989 with the same.
Their lawyer Gerard P. Fox said he was “disappointed” by an e-mail to the Associated Press.
Fox said that it is his experience that judges at this level “almost always reject a case of musical copyright and that it is necessary to appeal to reverse and put the case back to the jury. My client will take little on the advisability of appealing. We have filed according to the opinions of two estimated musicologists who teach in large colleges.”
The costume of Stone and Powers said that “” everything I want for Christmas is you “contains a unique linguistic structure where a person, disillusioned with expensive gifts and seasonal comfort, wants to be with their beloved and writes a letter to Santa Claus.”
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They said there was an “overwhelming probability” that Carey and Afanasieff had heard their song – which at one point reached No. 31 on the hot Country Chart of Billboard – and broke their copyright by taking important elements.
After hearing two experts for each side, Ramírez Almadani agreed with those of the Defense, who said that the writers employed current Christmas shots that existed before the two songs, and that Carey’s song used them differently. She said that the complainants had not welcomed the burden to show that the songs are significantly similar.
Ramírez Almadani also ordered sanctions against the complainants and their lawyers, claiming that their trial and subsequent deposits were frivolous and that the lawyers of the complainants “made no reasonable effort to ensure that the affirmed factual affirmations have proof support”.
She said they had to pay at least part of the defendants’ lawyer fees.
Defense lawyers and Carey publicists did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
The Carey Christmas Colossus has become an even greater success in recent years than in the 1990s. It has reached n ° 1 on the hot 100 graph of Billboard in the last six consecutive years – measuring the most popular songs each week – not only on the theme of vacation – by broadcasting, sales and streaming.
Carey and Afanasieff had their own public disagreement – but not the one who went to court – on whom the song wrote. But the case has at least made them temporary allies.
