All I Want for Christmas Is You lawsuit dismissed, Mariah Carey gets compensation of billions of rupiah

Mariah Carey (Instagram @mariahcarey)

Mariah Carey has reaped a huge profit from a legal battle involving her Christmas hit All I Want for Christmas Is You.

As is known, the legal case began when Andy Stone, who is popular with the stage name Vince Vance, filed a lawsuit in a Los Angeles federal court in November 2023.

Stone alleged that Carey's 1994 song had infringed the copyright on his 1989 song of the same name.

He claimed that the diva had used her popularity and musical style for personal gain. Even Stone's lawyer, Douglas M. Schmidt, stated that about 50 percent of her words were identical and in almost the same order.

However, Judge Monica Ramirez Almadini had a different view in her ruling. In March, Almadini ruled that Stone failed to meet the burden of proof to show that the two songs had a substantial resemblance.

Based on the expert witness's statement, the court assessed that the two songs only shared the clichés of common Christmas songs that were actually already in various previous songs.

In the latest court documents, reported by NME, it was revealed that the judge ordered Stone to pay Carey a penalty of 92,303 US dollars (equivalent to Rp. 1.4 billion) because the lawsuit was considered unfounded.

This financial sanction was imposed as an effort to prevent any party from filing similar claims without a strong legal basis in the future, given that Stone previously demanded a minimum of 20 million US dollars in compensation.

This victory further cemented the dominance of "All I Want for Christmas Is You" as the most successful Christmas song of all time.

The song brought Carey a record-breaking 20 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.