Da Vinci Code Case

Da Vinci Code writer copycat case

March 13, 2006

Best-selling novelist Dan Brown is due to take the witness stand in the London High Court today to refute charges that he copied ideas from another book to produce The Da Vinci Code.

Authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh are suing Da Vinci Code publisher Random House for copyright infringement.

They claim Brown “appropriated the architecture” of their 1982 non-fiction book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

Both books explore theories – dismissed by theologians but embraced by millions of readers – that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, the couple had a child and the bloodline survives.

If the writers succeed in securing an injunction to bar the use of their material, they could hold up the scheduled May 19 release of The Da Vinci Code film starring Tom Hanks.

Random House lawyers argue that the ideas in dispute are so general they are not protected by copyright.

They also say many of the ideas in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail do not feature in Brown’s novel, which follows fictional professor Robert Langdon as he investigates the murder of an elderly member of an ancient society that guards dark secrets about the story of Jesus and the quest for the Holy Grail.

Brown, 41, has travelled from his home in the US state of New Hampshire to sit in courtroom 61 of London’s High Court as lawyers dissect the books’ accounts of the medieval Knights Templar, the secretive Priory of Sion and the Merovingian royal line allegedly descended from Jesus.

Lawyers, witnesses and judge Peter Smith have pored over well-thumbed paperback copies of the two books and consulted related works with titles like The Templar Revelation and The Woman with the Alabaster Jar.

During more than three days of cross-examination last week by Random House lawyer John Baldwin, Baigent conceded that several key points in the claimants’ case were wrong – including the claim that The Da Vinci Code contained all the same historical conjecture as the earlier book.

“I would concede that ‘all’ is far too strong,” Baigent said. “I would say ‘most’.”

Brown’s fast-moving theological thriller has sold more than 40 million copies since it was published three years ago this week.

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail – a more modest best-seller on its release – has seen a surge in sales since the trial began.