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
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If you had all the money in the world, what’s the one sneaker you would buy or create?
“There are a few shoes that have ‘grail’ status for me. But the one I have always wanted is the Nike x Patta x Parra Air Max 1 - Cherrywood. To get a pair in my size brand new is would cost me between Dh8,000 and Dh 10,000.” Jack Brett
“If I had all the money, I would approach Nike and ask them to do my own Air Force 1, that’s one of my dreams.” Yaseen Benchouche
“There’s nothing out there yet that I’d pay an insane amount for, but I’d love to create my own shoe with Tinker Hatfield and Jordan.” Joshua Cox
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
FIXTURES
December 28
Stan Wawrinka v Pablo Carreno Busta, 5pm
Milos Raonic v Dominic Thiem, no earlier then 7pm
December 29 - semi-finals
Rafael Nadal v Stan Wawrinka / Pablo Carreno Busta, 5pm
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December 30
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Final, 7pm
Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
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