“All I Want for Christmas is You” came out way back in 1994, but a recent Supreme Court ruling says copyright owners can wait as long as they want to file lawsuits.
The case immediately prompted the question: Isn’t it too late for Vance to bring his case? There must be a statute of limitations for suing over song that’s been in the zeitgeist for nearly three decades, right?
The surprising answer to that question is no, thanks largely to a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2014 on the movie, which overturned long-standing rules on how long a copyright owner can wait before taking action in court. “The result has been not just the suit against Mariah Carey, but a flood of people coming out of the woodwork with decades-old copyright claims,” saysThe federal Copyright Act does have a three-year statute of limitations, but it’s a so-called “rolling” time limit that resets with each new infringement. That means every time “All I Want” is streamed, synched or sold, the clock restarts and someone like Vance can sue for damages over the previous three years of alleged wrongdoing.
“Given that Mariah Carey’s song is still actively being licensed and distributed, this means that any infringement claim related to that song may be brought,” saysUntil recently, though, a separate time limit largely prevented cases like Vance’s from being filed. The doctrine of “laches” is a rule under the American legal system that says it’s wrong to bring lawsuits if you’ve waited so long that it makes it’s unfair to your opponent.
At the time, legal experts warned that the Supreme Court’s ruling would likely lead to an explosion in years-old copyright claims. In the music industry, they were quickly proven right: Just days after the