Mariah Carey will receive more than $92,000 in sanctions after the lawsuit for alleged copyright infringement related to her iconic song “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was dismissed.
According to court documents obtained by People magazine, on December 23rd, a court ordered that the lawyer Gerard P. Fox, legal representative of the plaintiffs, pay the singer a total of $92,303.20.
The sanction was imposed after Judge Monica Almadani determined that the lawyer presented “legally irrelevant” arguments and carried out actions considered improper during the judicial process. In her ruling, the magistrate indicated that the measure was issued, in part, for the purposes of “punishment and deterrence”.
It should be remembered that the original lawsuit was filed in November 2023 by Andy Stone and Troy Powers, who claimed that Mariah Carey’s Christmas theme, released in 1994, copied elements from their song of the same name published in 1989 by the band Vince Vance & the Valiants.
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The plaintiffs sought $20 million in compensation and had requested that the case be resolved by a jury trial.
However, in March of this year, Judge Almadani dismissed the case, concluding that there was insufficient evidence to support that Carey had copied the plaintiffs’ work.
The most recent resolution also refers to procedural irregularities. Court records indicate that Gerard P. Fox violated a court bifurcation order and filed a motion for summary judgment that was deemed “improper and frivolous”.
These actions led to the imposition of economic sanctions not only in favor of Mariah Carey, but also of other defendants, including the co-author of the song, Walter Afanasieff.
In total, the lawyer must pay $109,983.20 and has a period of 90 days to do so. So far, Fox has not responded to requests for comment.
During the process, the technical analysis of the music played a central role. Musicologist Lawrence Ferrara concluded that both songs are “very different” and that the only common point is the use of generic lyrical ideas and clichés typical of Christmas songs, resources widely used even before the publication of Stone’s song.
The court agreed with this assessment and determined that there was no infringement in terms of melody, harmony, rhythm, or lyrics.
The court decision comes at a particularly successful moment for the singer, as “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has established itself as a global cultural phenomenon since its release and continues to break records. It recently reached its 21st week in the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100, an unprecedented mark.
In addition, it became the song with the longest stay on the charts for a female artist and the first Christmas song to surpass two billion streams on Spotify.
