Mariah Carey wins copyright lawsuit over All I Want for Christmas Is You

Mariah Carey has won a copyright lawsuit over her 1994 megahit All I Want for Christmas Is You.

Back in November 2023, songwriters Troy Powers and Andy Stone - who performs under the name Vince Vance - filed a copyright complaint in a federal court in Los Angeles claiming that the singer stole the Christmas track from their 1989 song of the same name.

They requested at least $20 million (£15 million) in damages. It marked the second time lawyers for Stone had filed a lawsuit against Carey and her co-writer Walter Afanasieff, among others.

But in a ruling released on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani decided that the songs weren't similar enough for a jury to find the Believe hitmaker had committed copyright infringement.

Citing analysis by a musicologist, the judge explained that while both tracks reference "commonplace Christmas song clichés", the chord progressions and harmonic rhythms are "very different".

"Based on the foregoing, plaintiffs have not met their burden of showing that Carey and Vance are substantially similar under the extrinsic test," she wrote in her statement.

Elsewhere in the ruling, Judge Almadani criticised Stone and his lawyers for raising "frivolous legal arguments" and bringing up "irrelevant and unsupported statements of fact".

Accordingly, the plaintiffs have been ordered to repay some of the legal bills Carey incurred in defending the claims.

Representatives for the plaintiffs, Carey, and her label, Sony Music, have not yet commented on the news.