Mariah Carey didn't steal lyrics for hit song 'All I Want For Christmas Is You,' judge rules
Mariah Carey won big Wednesday after she was accused of copying lyrics for her hit "All I Want For Christmas Is You."
Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani granted Carey's motion for summary judgment before the case made it to trial, Fox News Digital can confirm.
Carey had been battling over her hit Christmas song after songwriters accused the R&B pop singer of stealing the lyrics in a complaint first filed in 2023.
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Andy Stone, the lead vocalist of Vince Vance and the Valiants, co-wrote his song – also titled "All I Want for Christmas is You" – in 1989. Stone accused Carey and her team of copying his song's "compositional structure," according to the complaint obtained by Fox News Digital.
Carey "directly" copied lyrics from Stone's 1989 hit, and "approximately 50%" of the song is copyright infringement, the court documents stated.
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Stone had claimed that Carey and her team "undoubtedly" had access to his version of "All I Want for Christmas is You" due to its "wide commercial and cultural success." Stone's song charted on Billboard for years, and his band performed the song during an appearance at the White House in the spring of 1994 – the same year Carey's song was released.
The White House performance put Vince Vance and the Valiants' song back on the Billboard Hot Country Chart in 1994, according to the court docs.
"Carey has capitalized on the success of her infringing work," Stone's complaint alleged. "'All I Want for Christmas is You' has become a ubiquitous part of popular culture, and Carey's name has become synonymous with the season."
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After hearing from two experts for each side, Ramírez Almadani agreed with those from the defense, who said the writers employed common Christmas clichés that existed prior to both songs, and that Carey's song used them differently. She said the plaintiffs had not met the burden of showing that the songs are substantially similar.
The judge also ordered sanctions against Stone and Powers, claiming the plaintiffs had filed a frivolous lawsuit and "made no reasonable effort to ensure that the factual contentions asserted have evidentiary support." They will also have to pay part of Carey's legal fees.
Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Carey for comment.
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Stone's lawyer, Gerard P. Fox, said he was "disappointed" with the outcome in an email to the Associated Press.
Fox claimed that judges at this level "nearly always now dismiss a music copyright case and that one must appeal to reverse and get the case to the jury. My client will make a decision shortly on whether to appeal. We filed based on the opinions of two esteemed musicologists who teach at great colleges."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.