The court ruled that Carey’s song did not copy her 1989 song of the same name.

On March 19, in a Los Angeles court, Judge Monica Almadani ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prove that Carey had violated her copyright in a lawsuit accusing Mariah Carey of copying Andy Stone’s 1989 country song of the same name.

The lawsuit was originally filed in November 2023 by Stone and co-writer Troy Powers, accusing Carey of “copyright infringement and unjust enrichment” from her hit.

According to court documents obtained by PEOPLE, Carey’s version of All I Want for Christmas is You allegedly imitates the “compositional structure” of the original song.

“Defendants knew or should have known that All I Want for Christmas Is You could not be used in their musical work without a license or attribution from the author, as is customary in the music industry,” the court documents read. So Stone and Powers asked for $20 million in damages and a jury trial.

However, according to the March 19 ruling, “there is no evidence to support the plaintiffs’ case that Carey’s 1994 song copied from Stone’s (who performs under the stage name Vince Vance) song.” The document also acknowledged that the phrase “all I want for Christmas is you” did not originate with Stone.

In analyzing the lyrics of the two songs, Dr. Lawrence Ferrara, a musicologist and professor of music at New York University, concluded that the lyrical similarities between the two songs were “discrete, used with different phrases, arranged differently, and within the common domain.”

He also stressed that the Vance and Carey versions “are very different songs, the only common elements being the use of popular lyric ideas and Christmas music clichés that predated the release of Stone’s song.”

The two songs were found to be substantially different in melody, harmony, rhythm and lyrics, and therefore did not infringe copyright.

This is not the first time Stone and Powers have sued Carey. They previously filed a similar lawsuit in June 2022 in Louisiana seeking $20 million in damages, but withdrew the lawsuit in November of that year.

Carey’s song “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was released in 1994 on the album Merry Christmas and became an annual holiday hit.

The song has been certified diamond by the RIAA for selling more than 10 million copies and has been streamed more than 2 billion times on Spotify as of December 2024, making it the first Christmas song to achieve this feat.

Mariah Carey Wins Copyright Case Against Hit All I Want for Christmas Is You – Photo 2.
The song is more than 30 years old. (Photo: Mariah Carey)

Carey told PEOPLE: “This is incredible. I am so honored that All I Want for Christmas Is You has become the first Christmas song on Spotify to reach 2 billion streams.

I am so grateful to all the listeners around the world who have made this song a part of their Christmas traditions year after year.”