Dan Brown lawsuit over plagiarism claims.

[GOLLUM]

Just noticed this on the wires....

Dan Brown, author of the novel The Da Vinci Code is facing legal action over plagiarism claims, starting today 27 February 2006.

Please add any up-to-date newspaper links to this thread.

[Teresa Edgerton]

This is the most recent story I could find, and it's not very revealing:

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...20060227LON802

Interesting that it took the authors of HBHG so long to decide that he was stealing their ideas. He did, of course, (though whether this was plagiarism in the legal sense we'll have to wait and see), but they seemed to be content for a long time to allow the excitement surrounding his book to revive interest in theirs.

Whatever the outcome of the case, both sides are sure to benefit from the publicity. And the timing of this is interesting, with the movie about to be released ...

[Lacedaemonian]

I think they were waiting for the movie purely to achieve as much media coverage as possible. The movie will get more coverage than the book because most people on earth are stupid and don't read. They must hate all the credit he takes and the fact that he skewered the story thus damaging their research.

[Foxbat]

Lace may have a point about timing.

I was always under the impression that plagiarism was about directly lifting passages of another's work and using it in your own work. To me, this is more like the lifting of a much broader idea. Examples of the accusation are that in both books, Jesus was not crucified, married Mary Magdelane and raised a family. To me, stopping somebody writing about this would be like Bram Stoker rising from the grave and putting a lawsuit on anybody that wrote about vampires. I'm not convinced there's a case to answer here....but then again, that's probably why I'm a mere zug and not some legal eagle

[Lissa]

Like foxbat says, I was under the impression that plagiarism was more connected with using someone elses words as your own. They certainly cannot claim plagiarism on the ideas that are in both books. Those are theories that have been around for many many years.

[Paradox 99]

Doesn't he actually mention HBHG in the book? In which case it could hardly be called plagiarism if he actually references their work. Unless of course he didn't have their permission to refer to it - but that's a different can of worms.

[littlemissattitude]

I also seem to recall Brown having acknolwedged Holy Blood, Holy Grail somewhere in his book.

Having read both books (yeah, I know), I can't really see how they have a case. Unless they are claiming to have originated the ideas that Brown used, which they clearly did not considering that Holy Blood, Holy Grail is represented as an investigation into ideas that already existed. I'm sorry, but the whole thing smacks of money-grubbing to me.

[Lacedaemonian]

I don't think he has done enough to ensure that the wider audience know where 'his' ideas originated. He is taking a massive amount of credit for those 'ideas' and not for his novel - which is quite poor in truth. The 'ideas' sold the book, and none of them were his. If anything his twisting of certain part truths has damaged the massive amount of research Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln did for their novel. Anybody who has read their works know that they involve a whole lot of specualtion based on a huge amount (if not tenuous) of research. These concepts have been covered before but were never hacked so obviously and so badly with the result of the criminal Brown making a vast fortune for a tuppence bit novel.

[I, Brian]

I agree - it looks more like a publicity stunt. It almost looks like Random House is taking itself to court, to maxise whatever publicity it can.

So far as I was last aware, you *cannot* copyright or patent ideas - so any infringement would have to be direct copy of copyrighted material (ie, text).

[Marky Lazer]

Where there is succes and money, people want to have a piece of the cake.

[Lacedaemonian]

You can't copyright ideas. There should be some unspoken code with the big publishing houses not to plagiarise works though. Dan Brown is an awful human being - unless I have got him wrong.

[kyektulu]

Originally Posted by Lacedaemonian

I think they were waiting for the movie purely to achieve as much media coverage as possible. The movie will get more coverage than the book because most people on earth are stupid and don't read. They must hate all the credit he takes and the fact that he skewered the story thus damaging their research.

I agree with you on this Lace, my thoughts exactly.
I have also read that Dan Browns book has actually boosted the sales of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, so I cannot see why they would sue him except for monetary gain of course.

[Lacedaemonian]

If their sales have been boosted perhaps their aim is purely to slur his name. I hope so.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by Marky Lazer

Where there is success and money, people want to have a piece of the cake.

And when people have a piece of the cake, they want an even bigger piece.

I doubt any name-slurring is involved, Lace. This lawsuit is going to give both sides tons of free publicity, and everyone involved should benefit by increased sales. There's another side to this kind of notoriety besides selling more books, however. I'd be willing to bet that the fees Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln are able to command on the lecture circuit are climbing as we speak. Losing a high-profile court case like this one should be worth something on the order of $20,000 an appearance.

I wish I could find someone to sue me (or vice versa) to boost sales of my book! (Hmmmm ... perhaps Mark and I can arrange something to our mutual advantage.)

[Lacedaemonian]

Very true Kelps. Though the fact that Dan Brown is going to get more money out of this hurts my soul.