Elizabeth Chan got here out victorious in a trademark battle with Mariah Carey — however it was not a combat she ever wished to have.
“It was a really tough 12 months to go up towards somebody with limitless assets and also you’re simply combating for establishment. You are simply combating to your profession,” Chan tells Yahoo Leisure of blocking Carey’s “Queen of Christmas” trademark try. “She would have eviscerated and erased my legacy that I had labored for from nothing.”
Having a profession as a Christmas recording artist is one thing Chan sank every little thing she had into. The singer/songwriter liked Christmas music since she was a toddler, rising up with not loads of presents below the tree in New York Metropolis. Whereas she tried to offer music a go as a teen, “the music trade was fairly brutal,” she says. “They mentioned, ‘Asian artists do not make it in America. There’s not a spot for you on this enterprise.'” As an alternative, she solid a steady and profitable media profession. However that musical calling remained robust. In her early 30s, she took the leap and pursued her dream, actually “counting change” to pay the payments whereas she discovered her footing within the trade.
“I actually needed to like throw all of it away and begin over,” Chan says of leaving her media exec job. “It was very humbling … however properly, properly value it. I am very happy with my profession.”
During the last decade-plus, Chan established herself because the world’s solely full-time Christmas recording artist. That is the one style of music she makes — and she or he’s launched 12 albums in 12 years, the newest being 12 Months of Christmas. The unbiased artist-producer, is presently on Mediabase’s prime 10 vacation chart — behind simply the Backstreet Boys and Pentatonix — for her music “Merry Merry.” Hers is a household enterprise together with her husband, Andy Fraley, designing her album covers, and elder daughter, Noelle, whom she dubbed the “Princess of Christmas,” singing together with her mother, showing in music movies and writing music.
As for the title of “Queen of Christmas,” which was on the coronary heart of the trademark dispute with Carey, this is not a title Chan anointed herself. It was given to her — in 2014, after her second Billboard hit — by the media. “After I stroll right into a radio station, it is, ‘Here is the Queen of Christmas. She solely does Christmas music!'” She used Queen of Christmas because the title for her 2021 album, in addition to for a spoken phrase monitor on that album. It was whereas doing authorized prep to launch that album that her leisure legal professional flagged that Carey’s had filed a trademark utility, in March 2021, for “Queen of Christmas.”
Chan’s “The Queen of Christmas” monitor:
There is a false impression concerning the trademark dispute. Chan wasn’t making an attempt to win the trademark for herself. She additionally wasn’t making an attempt to stop Carey — whose “All I Need for Christmas Is You” is an undisputed vacation favourite — from utilizing it. She opposed Carey proudly owning it — in addition to “QOC,” “Princess of Christmas” (her daughter Noelle’s nickname) and “Christmas Princess,” which Carey additionally tried to trademark — as a result of she does not assume one particular person ought to have unique and everlasting rights to the title. In spite of everything, singers Darlene Love and Brenda Lee are additionally known as the Queen of Christmas, respectively. Additional, Carey’s trademark bid was far-reaching — not simply in music. It included use on tons of and tons of of merchandise together with fragrance and nail polish, but in addition canine leashes, cake mixes, corkscrews, fruit juices, sun shades, backpacks and … coconut milk, to call a number of.
If Chan did not dispute the trademark and Carey gained, she would have needed to take away mentions of “Queen of Christmas” from her web site, social media and promotional supplies. She might have doubtlessly been pressured to rename her album of that identify, launched after Carey filed for the trademark. Even media shops referring to Chan as Queen of Christmas in articles might have been hit stop and desist requests.
“It is the erasing of anyone else aside from one particular person. The results have been actually, actually severe,” Chan says. To not point out, “I’ve had an actual profession being often known as this. I wasn’t making an attempt to it take away [from Carey, Love, Lee or anyone else]. It was simply — I used to be additionally provided that Elizabeth Chan on her authorized battle with Mariah Carey over ‘Queen of Christmas’ like anyone else.”
So, “I needed to be courageous sufficient to face up,” she says of taking over Carey. “It was so David and Goliath. I imply: I couldn’t be a smaller David on this. And it was so scary. However I used to be the one one who was prepared and ready on the final minute.”
Wanting again, she admits she had “zero true understanding” of what it meant to tackle the combat. After talking with “dozens and dozens of attorneys,” there “was nobody that was prepared to assist me. Trademark regulation is just not one thing that is performed on contingency. There is not any windfall of winnings. It is not like that. You are simply combating for establishment.” She was informed the retainer to combat only one trademark was $250,000 — and Carey filed 4 that Chan sought to oppose. She was laying out $1 million plus $40,000 in submitting charges — simply to begin.
With 48 hours left to file an opposition, and a spreadsheet of attorneys who already mentioned no, Chan threw a Hail Mary, reaching out to a lawyer good friend, Kevin Prussia, whom she attended undergrad with. After explaining the state of affairs, she recalled him telling her, “Liz, you are by no means going to see the top of this. She is going to both bankrupt you for making an attempt [to stop the trademark] or stop and desist you in the event you do not combat.”
He requested for twenty-four hours, made a plea to his colleagues on the regulation agency WilmerHale, and referred to as Chan again the subsequent day to say they might symbolize her — free of charge. Her opposition was filed on Aug. 11.
Chan says what was at stake was the “tradition of Christmas. As a result of Darlene Love and Brenda Lee,” neither of whom she has met, “would not have been in a position to afford this [expensive legal battle either] and their legacies would have been performed, too. Additionally the tradition that made me the Queen of Christmas — the tradition that made anyone the Queen of Christmas — is the tradition that we must always go away behind for the long run. We do not personal it.”
She continues, “I wanted to reveal to the world that Queen of Christmas is a generational factor. It is one thing that modifications — from Brenda Lee to Darlene Like to Mariah to me. Sooner or later, there could be a distinct Queen of Christmas that is not even born but. She or he. Why would we steal that from them? we do not dwell ceaselessly, proper? Even Queen Elizabeth cannot be a queen ceaselessly.”
So, “I needed to be the one to face up, and I used to be the smallest one,” she says. “I couldn’t let this occur to the way forward for the style that raised me. I couldn’t let this be ceded to a single particular person for all of the fallacious causes.”
Then, abruptly, Carey’s trademark try got here to an finish on Nov. 15. Whereas over the summer time Carey made a number of makes an attempt to increase the proceedings — a authorized tactic that may be pricey, particularly in the event you’re going up towards somebody with restricted assets — the date for her to file a response to Chan’s opposition got here and went. Carey’s authorized workforce by no means filed, abruptly abandoning her request — and completely. In its announcement of Chan’s victory, WilmerHale referred to as the dispute a case of “traditional trademark bullying,” with Carey “making an attempt to monopolize” a title utilized by many alternative individuals.
Chan says she “cried” when she came upon it was over as a result of she was bracing for a courtroom battle. “We had trial dates … into 2024. [Carey] saved extending, extending the trial milestones.”
She says she wrote songs for the attorneys representing her, together with “The Giver,” as thank yous, saying they “understood Christmas on the core.” Chan says she might “by no means repay them,” and provides, “I simply need to emphasize that I used to be protected by good, good individuals.”
All through this ordeal, she is aware of individuals have been asking, “Who’s Elizabeth Chan?” She’s properly conscious that she’s not as well-known as Carey. That was by no means her purpose in giving up her put up as a media exec for Christmas singing profession.
“Christmas music, in contrast to different genres, is a passive format,” she says. “It is not like High 40 the place you are following Taylor Swift as she’s doing stuff all 12 months round,” she says. “So persons are like: ‘Why have not I heard you earlier than?’ You even have heard my songs,” however singer/songwriters of many vacation songs aren’t usually aren’t well-known to the general public or it is many years earlier than their songs turn out to be well-known. “Individuals simply know the music — and my purpose is to make it concerning the music… I by no means wished to be wealthy or well-known. I simply wished to do what I really like.”
Chan’s enterprise is a household one involving her husband and daughters Noelle, whom she dubbed the “Princess of Christmas,” and Eva:
Chan — who has launched greater than 1,200 Christmas songs — says she has “two dozen songs enjoying all over the world at any given time. Through the Christmas season, they play in perhaps 100,000 shops and retail locations. I get a kick out of strolling round and listening to my music. Followers will message me, ‘I heard you at J.Crew.’ … I’m not your common artist. I am not Taylor Swift. I am like a taking pictures Christmas comet that is been caught at, like, Pottery Barn. I am in each retailer in America. My enterprise is simply completely different.”
With the trademark combat behind her and Christmas across the nook, “I’ve 30 days till my season’s over, I am [firing] on all cylinders proper now.” And she or he desires to shift the main focus again to that — and sharing “my ardour, my objective.”
She says her profession was “hard-earned. I obtained loads of nos. Everybody on this enterprise desires to inform you what’s unattainable … and then you definitely assume that is the doctrine, however it’s not. Everybody informed me, You will by no means win this trademark factor. You need to discover one other job. Your profession is over.’ All people all the time desires to inform you what’s not attainable. Generally individuals simply do not know.”
She provides, “My love for what I do is so honest and I’m so happy with it.”
