Mariah Carey first released All I Want For Christmas Is You in 1993 (Picture: Getty Images for iHeartMedia)
Mariah Carey is being sued for copyright infringement over her festive hit All I Want For Christmas Is You.
Andy Stone and Troy Powers are seeking $20million (£16.5m) in damages after claiming the We Belong Together singer, 54, ripped off their song.
The two songwriters wrote a track, also called All I Want For Christmas Is You, that was released in 1989, four years before Mariah’s tune hit the charts in 1993.
Andy and Troy claim there are substantial similarities in the lyrical hook and melody between the two songs in documents filed in federal court in Los Angeles.
The filing obtained by TMZ also alleges the Fantasy hitmaker ‘palmed off these works with her incredulous origin story, as if those works were her own.’
Andy previously tried to sue Mariah for $20m in damages for copyright infringement last year in a nearly identical lawsuit.
At the time, the defendant alleged that All I Want For Christmas Is You was taken from one of the same name that he co-wrote for Vince Vance & the Valiants in 1989 and never gave permission for it to be used.
In the documents, obtained by PA, Andy stated that Mariah and her collaborators ‘knowingly, wilfully, and intentionally engaged in a campaign’ to infringe his copyright for the song.
However, Andy later dismissed the case, which had been filed at a federal court in New Orleans, because Louisiana was the ‘wrong venue’, his lawyers told Rolling Stone.
All I Want For Christmas Is You has become one of the most well-known Christmas hits, with Mariah’s Merry Christmas album also being the best-selling US Christmas album of all time, selling more than 15 million copies worldwide.
The track frequently reenters the charts around the festive season and has come to be one of the singer’s most iconic songs.
She previously revealed her doubts about recording the song, telling Metro.co.uk and other press in November 2021: ‘It was very early on in my career when I wrote and recorded All I Want For Christmas Is You, it was the first holiday song I ever wrote.
The lawsuit has been filed in federal court in Los Angeles (Picture: CBS via Getty Images)
‘And I’ll never forget being in this room, with this little keyboard, and playing around with it and writing the lyrics and moving on and working with my then writing partner Walter [Afanasieff ].’
‘It was just the moment. At first I doubted it too. I was like, “Why would I do a Christmas song now? This is so early in my life and my career,” but I’m so thankful that it did because it came out of a pure place.’
The lawsuit comes after Mariah officially declaredit was the end of Halloween and the spooky season and the start of Christmas in the most Mariah way possible.
All I Want For Christmas Is You is one of the biggest festive hits of all time (Picture: Redferns)
In a new video shared on social media, a clock ticked from 11.59pm on October 31 to midnight on November 1, with a vault opening to reveal the music icon sealed in a block of ice.
Spooky characters, including Ghostface from Scream, were seen using hairdryers to melt the block as the mom-of-two began to thaw.
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She then belted out, ‘it’s time’, causing the rest to crack as All I Want For Christmas played over the top and decorations sprouted from all angles – with her children, Monroe and Moroccan, getting in on the action.
Alongside the iconic video, Mariah penned: ‘It’s…… TIME!!! #MariahSZN.’
Metro.co.uk has contacted Mariah’s reps for comment.
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The defendents filed a lawsuit in LA.
