NEED TO KNOW
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Mariah Carey will receive $92,303.20 in legal fees
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The copyright infringement case against her and her hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was dismissed in March.
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The lawsuit was originally filed in 2023 by Andy Stone and Troy Powers.
Mariah Carey is set to receive significant compensation following a copyright infringement case against her and her hit song.”All I want for Christmas is you.” was fired earlier this year.
Carey, 56, was awarded $92,303.20 in punitive damages on Dec. 23, payable by attorney Gerard P. Fox, who represented the men who sued the Grammy winner over her holiday classic, according to documents obtained by PEOPLE.
The court filing argued that Fox made “numerous legally irrelevant arguments” about why attorneys' fees should not be awarded, and Judge Monica Almadani wrote that she awarded the sanctions in part “for the purposes of punishment and deterrence.”
Plaintiffs Andy Stone and Troy Powers filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Carey, her co-writer Walter Afanasyev and others in November 2023, alleging that her 1994 holiday hit was taken from their 1989 song of the same name, released by Vince Vance & the Valiants.
Denise Trusello/Getty
Mariah Carey performs in Las Vegas in April 2024.
They sought $20 million in damages and a jury trial, but the case was dismissed in March after Almadani ruled there was insufficient evidence that Carey copied the song.
Carey's “All I Want for Christmas Is You” become a holiday staple since its release and recently spent a record 21st week at the top Billboard Hot 100 chart. It also recently became the longest charting song ever by a female artist and the first holiday song to reach 2 billion streams on Spotify.
Court records show Fox has 90 days to pay Carey and the other defendants amounts totaling $109,983.20.
The filing alleges Fox violated the court's bifurcation order and filed a motion for summary judgment that it called “improper and without merit.” Fox did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.
During the trial, musicologist Dr. Lawrence Ferrara concluded that Carey's song and Stone's song are “very different songs, and the only element of similarity is the use of a common lyrical idea and Christmas song clichés that were widely used before” the release of Stone's song.
The songs were judged to be sufficiently different in melody, harmony, rhythm and lyrics to avoid copyright infringement.
Read the original article at People
