Andy Stone and Troy Powers are seeking at least $20 million from Carey, saying that they also wrote a song with the same name in 1989.
via: Radar Online
Mariah Carey slammed a lawsuit brought by two songwriters accusing her of ripping off their song to create her legendary Christmas hit.
According to court documents obtained by RadarOnline.com, the pop star — along with Universal Music and Sony Music — demanded all claims brought by Andy Stone aka Vince Vance, and Troy Powers be dismissed.
Stone and Powers have filed multiple lawsuits against Carey over All I Want For Christmas Is You. The duo co-wrote a song with the same title in 1989.
Stone claimed his track received considerable airplay in 1993 — one year before Carey released her song.
In November 2023, Stone and Powers filed a new lawsuit demanding $20 million in damages for the alleged song theft.
The duo claimed Carey’s song had substantial similarities in the hook, melody and overall feel. The songwriters blasted Carey for having, “palmed off these works with her incredulous origin story, as if those works were her own.”
Now, in her newly filed response, Carey said “Andy Stone and Troy Powers after sitting silent for nearly thirty years—which itself is telling—now make the outrageous and insulting claim that Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas copies Plaintiffs’ obscure and obviously different song.”
Her lawyer argued, “Not only does Plaintiffs’ song unlawfully copy an even earlier hit song, but the two songs’ music and lyrics are completely different, with Plaintiffs absurdly relying on, for example, both song’s references—like untold Christmas songs before them—to snow, mistletoe, presents under Christmas trees, and wanting a loved one for Christmas, and relying on generalized and unprotectable themes such as “the human condition, and the need for the company of another above all else at Christmastime.”
Further, her legal team told the court, “The allegedly copied elements or materials lack originality or otherwise are not protected by copyright.”
Carey called Stone and Powers’ claims “not only false but frivolous.”
The singer asked that the lawsuit be dismissed, and her legal fees covered by the songwriters.
In 2017, Carey said she wrote the Christmas song as a kid. The song’s co-writer Walter Afanasieff blasted the “origin story” presented by Carey about the song. He claimed the singer created an “alternate story” on how the song was created.
“When she started to hint at the fact that, “Oh, I wrote that song when I was a little girl!” But why weren’t you saying that for 12 or 13 or 15 years prior to that? So it just sort of developed in her mind,” Afanasieff said. “She doesn’t play anything. She doesn’t play keyboard or piano. She doesn’t understand music, she doesn’t know chord changes and music theory or anything like that. She doesn’t know a diminished chord from a minor seventh chord to a major seventh chord.
“So to claim that she wrote a very complicated chord-structured song with her finger on a Casio keyboard when she was a little girl, it’s kind of a tall tale,” Afanasieff added.
Afanasieff claimed the song was actually written while the two worked on material for her Christmas album.
“We were holed up in this beautiful home that they were renting, and it was the summertime and there was a piano,” he said. “So the writing of “All I Want For Christmas” is, I started playing a boogie-woogie, kind of a rock. Mariah chimed in and started singing “I don’t want a lot for Christmas.”
“So on and on, and it was like a game of ping-pong,” Afanasieff added. “I’d hit the ball to her, she hits it back to me.”
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Carey is still fighting her brother in court over accusations she made in her memoir.
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