Mariah Carey’s song “All I Want for Christmas is You” is being sued for the second time.
Songwriter Vince Vance, real name Andy Stone, filed a copyright lawsuit Wednesday in Los Angeles federal court. He claims the singer stole the Christmas track from his 1989 song of the same name.
“Carey, without a license, has parlayed these works with her incredulous origin story as if these works were her own,” Vance’s lawyers wrote in the filing, reports Billboard. “Her hubris knows no bounds, and even her co-credited songwriter does not believe the story she has spun. This is simply a case of actionable infringement.”
Vance had previously filed a copyright lawsuit against the singer, but filed again Wednesday after she hired a new legal team that includes Gerald Fox, who represented two songwriters who sued Taylor Swift, claiming she stole lyrics from them to create “Shake It Off.
“The phrase ‘all I want for Christmas is you’ may seem like common parlance today, but in 1988 it was distinctive in context,” the filing continued. “Moreover, the combination of the specific chord progression in the melody paired with the verbatim hook was more than a 50% clone of Vance’s original work, both in lyric choice and chord expression.”
Since its release in 1994, Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” has been at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart for each of the past four holiday seasons.
