Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You is one of the most popular Christmas songs of all time. Whether you willingly played the song for your holiday festivities, or if you have ever once entered any store between the months of November and January, you’ve definitely heard it. The song boasts over a billion streams on Spotify, but a new lawsuit alleges the Queen of Christmas should not be the one getting all that revenue!
Mimi, her music co-writer Walter Afanasieff, and Sony Music Group are facing a $20 million dollar lawsuit that claims the credits of the holiday smash hit belong to another party.
Andy Stone, known artistically as Vince Vance and the Valiants, filed a civil lawsuit claiming he is the rightful owner and that Mariah merely “took inspiration” from a song he wrote years prior. He claims that in 1989 he co-wrote and recorded a song of the same name in Nashville. He also recounted that his version of the song received “extensive airplay” during the holiday season of 1993 — just one year before Mariah released her version in 1994.
Has anyone ever heard of All I Want For Christmas Is You sung by Vince Vance and the Valiants? If it got extensive airplay in 1993, surely someone remembers hearing the smash hit before Mariah released it, right? Here’s the thing — you might’ve heard it without even knowing it!
Listen (below):
Doesn’t sound much like the Merry Christmas album feature we all know and (maybe) love, does it? Yep, the two songs are musically AND lyrically different! So… what’s his deal??
Related: Kanye West Is Being Sued By A PASTOR!
Andy, whose court filings describe him as a “self-employed artist who earns his livelihood in the business of performing, selling and licensing his copyrighted music”, is suing Carey because she “never sought or obtained permission” for the use of the title All I Want for Christmas Is You.
He’s suing because Mariah’s song has the same name as his? There aren’t any other similarities between the two? (Let’s hope he doesn’t have a song called Daylight — in the past decade alone there’s been upwards of a dozen Daylights! Yikes!) Can you even trademark a title like that? And if so did he??
Court documents state that Stone first reached out to Carey’s legal team in April 2021, but the two parties were “unable to come to an agreement”. He then sent a cease and desist letter, alleging that she and her team continued to “exploit” his work.
If his work was being exploited, why didn’t he file a lawsuit when Mariah’s song came out? Why did he wait 28 YEARS — after the song went worldwide and gained over $60 million in royalties — to finally reach out?
At the time of writing this, neither Carey nor her team have responded publicly to the lawsuit. What do YOU think??
Related Posts
Source: Read Full Article
