Love it or hate it, there’s no denying the mass appeal of Mariah Carey’s seminal Christmas hit “All I Want for Christmas is You”. Released in 1994, it’s the one and only holiday song to have sold 10 million or more copies in the United States, earning Diamond distinction. It has set chart records for the genre, though it didn’t actually achieve #1 on the Hot 100 until 2019.
And now Vince Vance, of Vince Vance and the Valiants, is suing Carey for copyright infringement and misappropriation for stealing the… title of his song, which came out 5 years earlier, also features a female singer, and in no other way, shape, or form, resembles the mega-hit. (But you don’t have to take my word for it: You can listen to the Vince Vance version in the attached article).
The news stories I have read about this case—including by the Washington Post and CNN—are so badly written as to be gibberish. I’ll wait for more information before I can actually form an opinion.
As reported, the claims are extremely weak. However, the way the articles are written also makes it clear that the writers and editors don’t actually understand intellectual property, so I won’t rely on them.
Here’s the short answer: You can’t copyright a title. Otherwise Ringo Starr, Def Leppard, Nickelback, and Ed Sheeran would be tied up in eternal litigation over their songs called Photograph.
Without going into the merits, or lack of, the lawsuit, I’d just like to say that the Mariah Carey song irritates the hell out of me because whenever I’m trying to find the Vince Vance song on YouTube I have to wade through umpteen listings of the Mariah Carey version unless I remember to specify Vance.
All as I understand it here and now (but things could change):
Vance is suing for copyright infringement, which has no legs because his claim is that her song is a derivative work of his based on them sharing a title and an overarching theme. And that is patently ridiculous.
Vance is also suing for unjust enrichment. This has wobbly, arthritic legs because a key element is lacking–any sort of artistic or business relationship between him and Carey. For this to work, he would have to show that Carey unfairly built off of his work to his detriment. Outside of the title and the extremely wide shared theme, I’m at a loss for how that can be.
Best guess is that Vance’s claim is that Carey drove his song off the airwaves by putting out a vastly more popular song, a song that she would never have come up with on her own without his song preexisting. Or something.
I refrained from making this the basis of an opinion, because it’s so obvious, that I would want to read the actual complaint before mocking the complaint on that basis. If he has a competent lawyer, then making a copyright claim on the basis of the title is practically unbelievable.
So, I’m going to continue to refrain from analysis on the basis of the current news reports.
