All I Want for Christmas Is You, a holiday favorite and perennial chart-topper from 1994, was co-written by Mariah Carey and a Mississippi songwriter. A $20 million copyright violation lawsuit was later abandoned against Mariah Carey.
The case against Mariah Carey and her co-writer Walter Afanasieff was first brought by Andy Stone in June, but he withdrew it on Tuesday.
According to a Rolling Stone story, Stone was requesting damages of at least $20 million for claimed copyright violation involving only the song’s identical names.
Stone claimed in his initial complaint that in 1989, he recorded and distributed the song “All I Want For Christmas Is You” as Vince Vance And The Valiants. He accused the singer and her co-writer of intentionally violating his copyright for the song (he claimed they had created a “derivative” version of it) and of afterward making unfair profits from the piece. Additionally, he said that the co-writers were aware of Stone’s 1989 song because it had “heavy exposure” around Christmastime in 1993.
Watch Andy Stone’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” video below.
Along with Sony Corp. of America, Sony Music, which distributed “All I Want for Christmas is You” on Columbia Records, was named as a co-defendant in the lawsuit.
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Variety contacted representatives for Mariah Carey and Sony Music, who either denied or delayed responding to requests for comment.
The plaintiff can re-file the lawsuit at a later date because Stone’s attorneys voluntarily dropped the case, but as Rolling Stone notes, Stone is unlikely to receive the $20 million settlement he was seeking because there are currently 177 copyrighted songs with the title “All I Want for Christmas Is You”.
