Singer Mariah Carey is getting sued about her getaway smash strike “All I Want for Xmas Is You.”

The lawsuit has been introduced by songwriter Andy Stone who alleges he co-wrote a tune with the same title five decades before.

A complaint filed Friday in New Orleans federal courtroom exhibits that Stone, who life in Mississippi, is trying to get at the very least $20 million in damages for copyright infringement and misappropriation, between other claims, from Carey and her co-author Walter Afanasieff as properly as from Sony Corporation of America and its subsidiary Sony New music Amusement.

Stone, artistically acknowledged Vince Vance of the New Orleans region-pop band Vince Vance & the Valiants, co-wrote and recorded his version of “All I Want for Xmas Is You” in 1989, in accordance to the grievance. The song then been given “intensive airplay” throughout the 1993 Christmas period and “started producing appearances on the Billboard Songs Charts.”

Carey’s variation was unveiled in 1994 as aspect of her “Merry Christmas” album. The tune has extended been given common perform on the radio and on streaming providers, specially in the course of the getaway year, fundamentally turning the music into the supreme Xmas anthem.

It has also topped the Billboard Incredibly hot 100 chart every calendar year because 2019, despite owning been recorded a quarter century earlier. “All I Want for Xmas Is You” was Carey’s 19th No. 1 track, a single fewer than The Beatles.

When equally tunes share the similar title, they have diverse lyrics and melodies.

Even so, the lawsuit argues that Carey and the other defendants “never sought or acquired permission” to use, reproduce or distribute Stone’s tune which was a “copyrightable subject matter issue” prior Carey’s 1994 launch.

Attorneys symbolizing Stone did not right away respond to requests for remark.

Sony and Afanasieff as properly as reps of Carey also did not promptly react to requests for remark.

Diana Dasrath and Reuters contributed.