Copyright Spat Over 'The Da Vinci Code' Reaches High Court

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

01 March 2006

A copyright dispute between Dan Brown, author of bestseller 'The Da Vinci Code', and two of the authors of an earlier non-fiction book based on similar themes began to be heard in the UK's High Court on Monday.

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of 'The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail' 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 are suing their publisher, Random House, which also published Mr Brown's more recent book, and if successful, could gain a share of his not inconsiderable profits, and delay the launch in May of the film version of 'The Da Vinci Code'.

According to a report on the matter from The Independent, representing Baigent and Leigh, Jonathon Rayner James QC argued that:

"It is not as though Brown has simply lifted a discrete series of raw facts from HBHG. He has lifted the connections that join the points up."

However, Mr Brown has argued that although the earlier book was one of several on the topic consulted in the process of constructing his plotline, HBHG was not "crucial or important" to the creation of 'The Da Vinci Code'.

The case is expected to run for at least two weeks.

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