(NewsNation) — For the second time in two years, a songwriter is suing Mariah Carey claiming her hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was stolen from him.
Country singer Andy Stone, who goes by Vince Vance on stage, filed a copyright lawsuit in a California district court Wednesday, just in time for the holiday season. The suit alleges Carey ripped off his song with the same title.
According to court records, Stone withdrew a similar lawsuit last year over the same songs in a federal court in Louisiana.
The suit alleges Carey copied the “compositional structure of an extended comparison between a loved one and trappings of seasonal luxury, and further includes several of Plaintiffs’ lyrical phrases.”
Stone’s band Vince Vance and the Valiants co-wrote and recorded his version of the song “All I Want for Christmas Is You” in 1989, according to the complaint. The song then received “extensive airplay” during the 1993 Christmas season.
Carey’s version was released in 1994 as part of a Christmas album. Since then, it has received widespread play on the radio and streaming services, becoming a quintessential anthem of the holiday season. It has also topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart every year since 2019.
While the songs share the same title, their lyrics and melodies are different.
However, Stone claims Carey copied “the combination of the specific chord progression in the melody paired with the verbatim hook,” which they allege “was a greater than 50% clone of Vance’s original work, in both lyric choice and chord expressions.”
The plaintiffs are asking for at least $20 million in damages, claiming Carey’s massive success was partially due to their original ideas.