Song shares title with 1989 country hit
Mariah Carey is being sued over her massive 1994 hit, “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” Andy Stone of the country group Vince Vance & The Valiants filed the complaint in US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana accusing Carey and her songwriting partner, Walter Afanasieff, of infringing the rights to a song by the same name released by his group in 1989. The suit follows a cease and desist order from Stone’s camp after the two parties were unable to “come to any agreement over usage” of the title.
Stone claims his song received significant airplay and charted on Billboard in 1993, accompanied by a video. Carey released her song and video five years later in 1994. Twenty-five years after its release, Carey’s song marked her 19th ascent to the top on the Billboard charts and became the only track to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in three separate runs: 2019, 2020 and 2021.
Stone is demanding at least $20 million in damages for alleged copyright infringement, unjust enrichment, and violations of the Lanham Act for “causing confusion as to the association” between the two songs. The Lanham Act is a federal statute that governs trademarks, service marks and unfair competition.
Despite sharing a title, both songs greatly differ and can be heard below.
Copyright.gov claims that “Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases. In some cases, these things may be protected as trademarks.”
Los Angeles entertainment attorney Gordon Firemark, who’s known as The Podcast Attorney, tells us exclusively that he suspects the claim will be thrown out of court due to a variety of reasons.
“A title is generally considered to be too small or lacking in sufficient originality to justify copyright protection, and certainly the use of a similar or identical title isn’t necessarily copyright infringement anyway,” Firemark states. “With that said, there could theoretically be a trademark or trademark-like kind of claim related to the title of a famous a song — they don’t generally register trademarks for individual works but had it be a series or something like that. My take on this suit by Mr. Stone is that it is lacking — at least on copyright grounds — lacking on any real basis of the law. And more importantly, I think he’s going to get thrown out of court very quickly because [Carey’s] song is 28 years old. Carey’s version came out 28 years ago and it was a giant hit and has been played thousands of times every year ever since. So, the statute of limitations and other legal doctrines will certainly, I think, bar him from successfully pursing this lawsuit.”
Firemark says there’s typically a three year statute of limitations on copyright claims.
“Generally, a person is responsible for pursuing their rights, if at all, within a limited amount of time after they knew or should have known of the infringement. He should have known of the infringement as early as 1994. Even if he was in a coma for a few years, he would’ve heard about it eventually,” Firemark laughs. “The usual statute of limitations for copyright infringement is three years from the knew or should’ve known date. Now, we have seen a number of lawsuits that have come up after a long period after you knew or should’ve known something. And basically, the way the courts do it, they only look back three years from the date of the suit being filed as far as giving an award of damages — only reaching back for three years worth of damages. I think [Carey’s] song probably made most of its money during the earlier years of its life. Of course, [Carey] is making some kind of royalties every time it’s performed, but I don’t think it approaches $20 million dollars. I think [Stone] is going to have a very hard time with this case.”
Carey’s “Christmas” has topped 4.3 billion in radio audience, 1.4 billion streams and 3.7 million in download sales, since its release. The song first topped the Hot 100 dated December 21, 2019, and led again on the next two lists, dated December 28, 2019, and January 4, 2020.
The following holiday season, it returned to No. 1 on the chart dated December 19, 2020, and, after a week at No. 2 (below Taylor Swift’s “Willow”), topped the January 2, 2021, dated tally.
As “Christmas” ruled December 25, 2021-dated chart, it claimed its sixth total week at No. 1 in its third seasonal run at the summit, becoming the first song in the Hot 100’s 63-year history to lead in three distinct chart runs. The track has re-entered the survey each November or December dating to 2012.
As the track has made four interrupted climbs to the top of the Hot 100, on charts dated December 21, 2019, December 19, 2020, January 2, 2021, and now December 25, 2021, it ties 24kGoldn’s “Mood,” featuring Iann Dior, beginning in October 2020, and Drake’s “Nice for What,” in 2018, as the only songs with four separate ascents to No. 1. Unlike “Christmas,” the latter two tracks logged their four distinct rises to No. 1 over unbroken chart stays.
Carey’s “Christmas” now boasts the longest span from a song’s first week at No. 1 on the Hot 100 to its latest: two years and four days (Dec 21, 2019-Dec 25, 2021). It’s also the only holiday single to take home the RIAA’s coveted Diamond Award, in recognition of ten million sales and streaming units in the United States.
