Dan Brown Victorious In Da Vinci Code Copyright Case

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

11 April 2006

Ruling on Friday, High Court Judge Peter Smith dismissed a copyright infringement case brought against best-selling author Dan Brown over his massively popular book, 'The Da Vinci Code'.

The dispute between Mr Brown 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 last month.

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of 'The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail', alleged 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 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."

"I conclude that, in the main, the majority of the central themes were drawn from The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail in a language sense, but it was not the sole source of Blythe Brown's efforts."

"It is quite clear that Mr Brown has not been able to provide all the answers as to the material which Blythe prepared for him... I do not regard the reasons put forward in the third witness statement for her absence as satisfactory. How DVC was researched and created is vital to the issues in this case."

"Blythe Brown's role in that exercise is crucial and I do not accept that there are reasons of a credible nature put forward as to why she has not appeared to give evidence."

Baigent and Leigh were denied leave to appeal, but have yet to decide whether to take the matter further in a higher court.

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