“All I Want for Christmas Is You,” the perennial hit song by Mariah Carey that has become a holiday ear worm for the ages, was not stolen from other songwriters, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled this week.
In addition to dismissing the music copyright case, the judge, Mónica Ramírez Almadani, ordered the two songwriters who filed the lawsuit to pay at least part of the lawyers’ fees for Ms. Carey and Walter Afanasieff, her co-writer and a co-defendant.
The lawsuit, which sought $20 million in damages, relied on music experts who claimed “similarities in isolation,” the judge found, but who failed to put those similarities in the context of the entire song. The judge said that the plaintiffs had not met the burden of showing substantial similarities.
The plaintiffs — Andy Stone, who uses the stage name Vince Vance, and Troy Powers — wrote the song in 1988, court documents show. Their song, also called “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” was recorded by Vince Vance and the Valiants and released in 1989.
It became a hit, appearing on Billboard’s Hot Country chart in 1994 and returning to the chart multiple times in the 1990s.
Ms. Carey’s song of the same name was released in late 1994 on her Christmas album, “Merry Christmas.”
In the lawsuit, lawyers for Mr. Stone and Mr. Powers said that the close timing of the success of the earlier song and Ms. Carey’s release “points to the overwhelming likelihood that Carey and Afanasieff, both career musicians and songwriters, who knew the importance of charting on Billboard, had access to the Vance work.”
The lawsuit said that the Vance song “contains a unique linguistic structure where a person, disillusioned with expensive gifts and seasonal comforts, wants to be with their loved one” and writes to Santa Claus.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs also said that Ms. Carey and Mr. Afanasieff should have sought a license or other permission from Mr. Stone and Mr. Powers because of that “unique and original” two-part sequence.
The lyrical phrase “All I want for Christmas is you” is at the end of every verse throughout the Vance song, and that phrase also appears throughout Ms. Carey’s song, the lawsuit said. It also said that her song used more than 50 percent of Mr. Vance’s work, in the lyrics and the chords.
Lawyers for Ms. Carey and Mr. Afanasieff said that the music and the lyrics of the two songs were completely different.
They said that the lawsuit was “absurdly relying on” references “to snow, mistletoe, presents under Christmas trees and wanting a loved one for Christmas” that appear in both songs. They said that “the human condition, and the need for the company of another above all else at Christmastime,” were not themes that were protectable by copyright.
Judge Ramírez Almadani heard testimony from two expert musicologists for each side, but she ultimately agreed with those testifying for Ms. Carey and Mr. Afanasieff.
One of those experts found no significant harmonic similarities between the songs, because the chord progressions and harmonic rhythms are “very different” in both works, the judge said in her ruling.
The expert also found that the two songs share only five words: mistletoe, Santa Claus/Santa, snow, stocking and Christmas, according to the ruling.
The phrases referring to the holiday season — “all I want for Christmas is you” and “underneath the Christmas tree” — as well as “just one thing” and “come true” were all part of a holiday vocabulary long before either of the songs was written, the judge said.
Lawyers for each side were not immediately available on Saturday.
Over the past three decades, Ms. Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has become one of the longest-charting singles in any genre, spending 65 weeks on Billboard’s Hot 100.
Jack Begg contributed research.
