NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 24: Mariah Carey performs onstage during Global Citizen Festival 2022: New York at Central Park on September 24, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Global Citizen)
After facing a lawsuit over her hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You” track last year, Mariah Carey is once again being sued by songwriter Andy Stone (aka Vince Vance).
Specifically, he’s alleging that the song was essentially stolen from him. The development comes right as the Lambs are celebrating Mariah’s annual “thawing” online!
According to Billboard, Stone accused Mariah Carey of copyright infringement, alleging that she copied the 1994 track from a song he and his group — Vince Vance & the Valiants — created in 1989.
In a complaint filed on Wednesday (Nov. 1), Stone’s lawyers issued a scathing critique against Carey. From MiMi’s alleged “incredulous” stories about her hit song to her “hubris knowing no bounds,” the attorneys didn’t hold back!
“Carey has without licensing, palmed off these works with her incredulous origin story, as if those works were her own. Her hubris knowing no bounds, even her co-credited songwriter doesn’t believe the story she has spun. This is simply a case of actionable infringement.”
They also referred to Andy Stone’s original track as “a country music hit” that received radio play into the early 1990s. Additionally, they stated that there are significant linguistic similarities between the two Christmas songs.
“The phrase ‘all I want for Christmas is you’ may seem like a common parlance today, [but] in 1988 it was, in context, distinctive.”
Notably, Stone’s attorneys called Mariah Carey’s bop “a greater than 50% clone of Vance’s original work.”
“Moreover, the combination of the specific chord progression in the melody paired with the verbatim hook was a greater than 50% clone of Vance’s original work, in both lyric choice and chord expressions.”
PEOPLE cites court docs to report that Andy Stone is seeking a jury trial, along with $20M in damages. As for his initial lawsuit, the outlet says it was dropped after five months.
News of Mariah facing another “All I Want for Christmas Is You” lawsuit from the same man comes as her diehard fans celebrate her annual thawing on social media.
Now that Halloween’s in the rearview mirror, people have their sights set on celebrating Christmastime (sorry, Thanksgiving fans).
Check out some recent tweets on the situation down below.
