Nearly 30 years after Mariah Carey released “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” the five-time Grammy Award winner is still reaping the benefits of the instant Christmas classic, pulling in an estimated millions of dollars in royalties each year off the holiday anthem, and launching an annual holiday tour around the song.
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00:00 Nearly 30 years after Mariah Carey released All I Want for Christmas Is You, the five-time
00:10 Grammy Award winner is still reaping the benefits of the instant Christmas classic.
00:15 Billboard reported last year Carey grossed $1.55 million in annual recording royalties
00:21 from each time the song's master recording is played or sold, plus as much as $830,000
00:28 in publishing royalties before fees for the use of the music.
00:32 Carey pulls in an estimated millions of dollars in royalties each year off the holiday anthem
00:37 and launches an annual holiday tour around the song, called Merry Christmas One and All.
00:42 The tour runs between November 15th and December 17th this year.
00:47 All I Want for Christmas Is You is the highest-charting holiday single by a solo artist on the Billboard
00:52 US Hot 100, according to Guinness World Records.
00:55 The song, which was released in 1994, also became the first holiday single certified
01:00 Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2021.
01:05 Carey, Sony Music, and All I Want for Christmas Is You co-writer Walter Afanasyev were named
01:11 in a $20 million copyright infringement lawsuit last year by songwriter Andy Stone, who claimed
01:16 defendants made a derivative version of Stone's 1989 song by the same name, which was released
01:21 under the artist's name, Vince Vance and the Valiants.
01:24 Stone's attorneys voluntarily dismissed the suit last November, but filed another
01:29 lawsuit in November of 2023.
01:32 Carey's legal team has not commented on the recent lawsuit.
01:35 All I Want for Christmas Is You has been covered by dozens of artists, including Michael Buble,
01:40 Dolly Parton, Ingrid Michelson, Shania Twain, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, and Lady A. Carey
01:46 also re-released the song in 2011 with Justin Bieber.
01:51 As of 2017, the song had generated over $60 million through royalties since its release,
01:56 according to an estimate by The Economist.
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