Since 2019, billions of people know it’s Christmas when they hear the now-classic Mariah Carey megahit song "All I Want for Christmas Is You." The song that dominates the holidays is the top-selling holiday single by a female artist with two billion streams on Spotify and over 16 million copies of the song sold worldwide. 

Ms. Carey recently won a closely watched copyright infringement lawsuit that accused her of illegally copying “musical elements: of her holiday song brought by writers of another song using the same name. The iconic singer’s attorneys argued that the two songs are "completely different" and that what the plaintiffs call “similar elements” are popular, common holiday words such as "snow, mistletoe, presents under Christmas trees, and wanting a loved one for Christmas."

In a ruling announced in Los Angeles in March, U.S. District Judge Monica Almadani said that the plaintiffs, writers for Vince Vance and the Valiants, did not prove their country music song was similar to Ms. Carey’s song.

The plaintiff Andy Stone, whose stage name is Vince Vance, and co-plaintiffs sued regarding their version of a song of the same name as Carey’s which was released in 1989 and registered on the country charts during the holidays in the 1990s. Ms. Carey’s song was first released in 1994 on her “Merry Christmas” album.

The $20 million lawsuit was filed in 2023 by Stone and his co-writer Troy Powers against Ms. Carey, her co-writer Walter Afanasieff, and Sony Music Entertainment.

In the complaint, Stone and Powers accused Ms. Carey of copying their country song with an "extended comparison between a loved one and trappings of seasonal luxury." The plaintiffs said Ms. Carey copied musical and lyrical elements and asked for a minimum of $20 million in damages.

In the court’s ruling, numerous reasons were listed pointing to why the plaintiffs lost their copyright case against Ms. Carey, including the lack of evidence Stone and Powers brought to court. According to Judge Almadani, the plaintiffs offered numerous confusing facts, without proof.

“Plaintiffs’ Fact 10 states, without any evidentiary support, that “Defendants undoubtedly had access to [Vance] prior to writing and releasing [Carey] given its wide commercial and cultural success,” even though access was not at issue in this initial phase as to the extrinsic test. Similarly, Fact 68 cites Sakakeeny’s declaration for the bald proposition that “Carey would have had ample access to [Vance],” despite Sakakeeny’s admission that he was never designated as an …expert on the factual issue of copying. Although Plaintiffs withdrew certain legally irrelevant arguments in their Reply, Plaintiffs did not withdraw numerous irrelevant facts in their Response to Statements of Genuine Dispute (“RSGD”).”

“It is clear to the Court that Plaintiffs’ counsel made no reasonable effort to ensure that the factual contentions asserted have evidentiary support,” said Judge Almadoni in the opinion. “Thus, the litany of [plaintiff’s] irrelevant and unsupported factual assertions…served only to confuse the Court and the parties.”

In the order dismissing the plaintiff’s suit, Judge Almadani wrote, “The Court would hesitate to find such conduct sanctionable under Rule 11. But as Defendants note, many of the other claimed facts are also “vague, compound, and incomprehensible mixtures of factual assertions and conclusions, subjective opinions, and other irrelevant evidence.” The court not only denied the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and granted summary judgment to the defendants, but the court also granted the defendants’ motion for sanctions against the plaintiffs.

Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure imposes a duty on attorneys and parties to conduct a reasonable inquiry into the facts and law before filing documents, which can be important in copyright infringement cases.  Rule 11 specifically authorizes sanctions against attorneys to deter frivolous lawsuits, and Ms. Carey’s legal team requested the court to impose them.

“Based on the foregoing, the Court finds that Plaintiffs, by and through their counsel, presented their Motion for an improper purpose, specifically to cause unnecessary delay and needlessly increase the costs of litigation, and that their Motion is “both baseless and made without a reasonable and competent inquiry” into the law and facts,” wrote the judge. “Plaintiffs’ counsel is at fault for the offending conduct. Indeed, in filing a motion for summary judgment, a reasonable attorney would not have blatantly disregarded the Court’s Bifurcation Order, raised frivolous legal arguments, and cited irrelevant and unsupported statements of fact.”

The court ordered the defendants to file a proposed order within 14 days “for attorneys’ fees reasonably incurred in preparing their Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Motion and the Motion for Sanctions.”

Attorney for the plaintiffs Gerald Fox said the ruling was a "disappointment." He said his client is deciding whether or not to appeal the case to the Circuit Court.