Mariah Carey faces $20m 'All I Want for Christmas is You' lawsuit

The song was first released in 1994 and has sold 15 million copies worldwide

Mariah Carey has become synonymous with Christmas thanks to her 1994 hit, ''All I Want for Christmas is You'. AP Photo

Mariah Carey is being sued for $20 million for copyright infringement over her hit song All I Want for Christmas is You.

The singer and her co-writer Walter Afansieff are both named in the lawsuit, which is being brought by songwriter Andy Stone.

The song was released by Carey in 1994 as part of her album Merry Christmas and has gone on to be recognised as one of the most well-known festive hits.

In legal documents filed at the US District Court in the Eastern District of Louisiana, Stone claims that he co-wrote the song in 1989 and has never given permission for it to be used.

The documents, obtained by the PA news agency, state that Carey and her collaborators "knowingly, wilfully, and intentionally engaged in a campaign" to infringe Stone's copyright for the song.

They added the defendants had also committed "acts of unjust enrichment by the unauthorised appropriation of plaintiff's work and the goodwill associated therewith".

Stone is seeking damages of $20m.

Merry Christmas was released by Columbia Records on November 1, 1994 and became the best-selling US Christmas album of all time, selling more than 15 million copies worldwide.

How much does Mariah Carey make from 'All I Want for Christmas is You'?

A 2017 report from The Economist estimates that Carey had earned more than $60m from the track between its release in 1994 and 2016. According to Celebrity Net Worth, the song earns anywhere between $600,000 and $1m in royalties every single year.

Streaming is additional revenue source for artists. Apple pays an average play rate of $0.01, while Spotify says artists are paid up to two-thirds of every dollar they make from music streaming, according to foxbusiness.com. However, it's unclear how much of Carey's streaming revenue is separate from her royalties.

Still, it's safe to say that Carey pockets millions every year from a song she wrote in 1994, which is now a holiday classic.

“If someone said to me, ‘What’s the lyric that stands out?’ To me in that song it is, ‘I won’t ask for much this Christmas, I won’t even wish for snow,’” she told parade.com in 2021.

“Because when I first wrote that song I was very, very early on in my career and I was still thinking about childhood stuff when I did wish for snow every year. So, for me to, ‘I won’t even wish for snow,’ that really meant a lot. That’s a huge deal, I’m not going to wish for snow? That’s bleak. I don’t want to have a non-snowy Christmas.”

— Additional reporting from PA News