All I want for Christmas is your royalties
Mariah Carey first released All I Want for Christmas is You in 1994. Now, 28 years later, Andy Stone of Vince Vance and the Valiants fame,* is suing her for copyright infringement, claiming that she used the title of his song, written five years earlier, without permission. But he's a reasonable guy, and he's only asking for at least $20 million to soothe his creative sensitivities.
It is not unusual for different songs to have the same name, and the United States Copyright Office lists 177 entries on its website under the title All I Want for Christmas is You.
While ol' droidy doesn't provide a link to the source of that information, the US Copyright Office's public copyright catalogue from 1978 to present does indeed include 177 entries under all i want for christmas is you
. That list, however, includes film titles; compilations; and song titles such as All I Want for Christmas is Your Smile. Limiting the results to music items retrieves 60 entries, but still doesn't give an exact match on the title.
So the actual number of potential claimants to Carey's royalties, and Stone's for that matter, is anyone's guess. Unless you want to trawl through each of those records individually, that is. And, like ol' droidy, I don't.
Admittedly, the droid doesn't claim that all of those 177 titles are either songs or exact matches. But it's misleading at best, and therefore worthy of acknowledgment of the editor's laissez-faire.
* No, I'd never heard of them before. And, after hearing their All I Want for Christmas is You, I rather wish I never had.