Baigent And Leigh To Appeal Da Vinci Code Ruling

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

14 July 2006

It emerged this week that Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of 'The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail', are to appeal a High Court ruling which found that 'The Da Vinci Code' author Dan Brown had not copied ideas from their non-fiction work.

Ruling in April, High Court Judge Peter Smith dismissed the copyright infringement case brought by the two men against the best-selling author.

Baigent and Leigh allege that Mr Brown lifted the central premise of their work - namely that descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene married into the Merovingian French royal bloodline, and are protected by a secretive French society known as the Priory of Sion - and transplanted it almost without amendment into 'The Da Vinci Code'.

The two men sued their publisher, Random House, which also published Mr Brown's more recent book.

Although Judge Smith acknowledged at the time that:

"The major part of the writings of the lectures at a later stage have substantially come from The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail," he added that:

"As he (Mr Brown) has taken matters at a general and low level of abstraction and he has only taken ideas and facts without any of the architecture, he has done nothing wrong."

"It would be quite wrong if fictional writers were to have their writings pored over in the way The Da Vinci Code has been pored over in this case by authors of pretend historical books to make an allegation of infringement of copyright."

However, he went on to chastise Mr Brown's wife (and his key researcher) for her failure to give evidence, arguing that:

"Mr Brown's evidence is of no assistance because of his vagueness. The person who could have unlocked this complex area is Blythe Brown. She is not here."

Baigent and Leigh were initially denied leave to appeal, but have this week been given permission to challenge the High Court decision.

Speaking to Reuters with regard to the appeal, expected to be heard in early 2007, a Random House spokesman announced that:

"We have the utmost respect for the British legal system and acknowledge Baigent and Leigh's right to appeal the ruling in the DVC case."

"We regret, however, that more time and money is being spent trying to establish a case that was so comprehensively defeated in the High Court."

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