Judge 'probable' to rule in Mariah Carey's favor in 'All I Want for Christmas' copyright lawsuit

More than two years after Mariah Carey was sued for allegedly copying her annual holiday song "All I Want for Christmas Is You," a California judge has declared she is "inclined" to accept Carey's move to dismiss.

Mariah Carey.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

The legal process began in the summer of 2022, when Mississippi musician Vince Vance (real name Andy Stone) filed a copyright complaint alleging that Carey's seasonal hit infringed on his 1989 song of the same name. Vance wanted $20 million from the lawsuit, but abandoned it that November.

A year later, in November 2023, the case was refiled with the same basic allegations, but with more information and the inclusion of co-plaintiff Troy Powers, who claims to have co-written the previous song.

"Carey has without licensing, palmed off these works with her incredulous origin story, as if those works were her own," Vance's attorneys claimed in the complaint. "Her arrogance has no boundaries; even her co-credited composer doubts the fiction she has crafted. This is merely an example of actionable infringement."

The latest complaint went into more detail about the similarities, including "unique linguistic structure" and particular musical parts, and saying it's a "greater than 50% clone of Vance's original work".

Carey's legal team filed a motion to dismiss the case in August, claiming that Vance's allegations fail the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' "extrinsic test for substantial similarity in protectable expression" - effectively saying that any similarities between the two songs are coincidental. 

Rolling Stone states that U.S. District Court Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani is "inclined" to accept the motion. Furthermore, Almadani has said that she is "seriously considering" allowing Carey's team's related petition, which seeks sanctions against the plaintiffs for what is believed to be a "frivolous" filing.

In his theory, Gerald P. Fox, the plaintiffs' lawyer, stated that it is "not required" that they establish the music is "identical" or "virtual plagiarism," but rather that simply "a certain arrangement of notes has to be unique, or the melody, or any aspect of the composition that's copied or similar."

Carey's lawyer, Peter Anderson, contended that the similarities discovered by musicologists hired by the plaintiffs amounted to terms like "Santa Claus" and "mistletoe" - lyrics that Carey's team claims are public domain.

"These are coincidental parallels. Anderson believed that these Christmas songs are based on about five Christmas cliches. "More importantly, their work has eight or nine more Christmas clichés that ours does not. There are eight or nine in ours that do not appear in theirs."

Judge Almadani has not yet rendered a decision in the matter and has not stated when one is expected."All I Want for Christmas is You" is one of the most successful holiday songs in history, having been released as the first single from Carey's Merry Christmas album in October 1994. For the previous four years, it has re-charted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 around the holidays.