Judge to Rule on 'Da Vinci Code'

[Shammu]

Judge to Rule on 'Da Vinci Code'

By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer 1 minute ago

LONDON - Suspense is building in the "The Da Vinci Code" trial with a judge trying to unlock a legal mystery of whether best-selling novelist Dan Brown infringed the copyright of two authors who say their ideas were pilfered.

High Court justice Peter Smith was expected to rule Friday on the lawsuit, brought by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh against publisher Random House.

Smith must decide whether Brown's blockbuster "appropriated the architecture" of Baigent and Leigh's 1982 nonfiction book, "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail." In the United States, the book is titled, "Holy Blood, Holy Grail."

Both books explore theories that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, the couple had a child and the bloodline survives. Most historians and theologians scoff at such ideas, but Brown's fast-paced mix of murder, mysticism, code-breaking and art history has won millions of fans.

"The Da Vinci Code" has sold more than 40 million copies — including 12 million hardcovers in the United States — since it was released in March 2003. It came out in paperback in the United States last week, and quickly sold more than 500,000 copies, an astonishing pace for a paperback release. An initial print run of 5 million has already been raised to 6 million.

A victory by Baigent and Leigh would stun the world of copyright law, challenging the concept that copyright protects the expression of an idea rather than the idea itself.

"A victory for Leigh and Baigent would make it very difficult for novelists, particularly historical novelists," said Fiona Crawley, a copyright expert with law firm Bryan Cave LLP.

"They go to source books to research the history to incorporate into their novel. It would call into question how they can research a historical novel without being accused of copyright infringement by the historian who has written the key work on that incident in history."

A win by the plaintiffs also could hold up the scheduled May 19 film release of "The Da Vinci Code" movie, starring
Tom Hanks. Sony Pictures says it plans to release the film as scheduled.

If Leigh and Baigent lose, they may have to pay costs that legal experts estimate will top $1.75 million.

The case drew a packed crowd of journalists, Dan Brown fans and theological revisionists to London's neo-Gothic High Court last month.

Judge Smith retained an air of bluff good humor during sometimes esoteric hearings that touched on the Roman Emperor Constantine's deathbed conversion to Christianity, the founding of the medieval warrior order the Knights Templar, the Merovingian dynasty allegedly descended from Jesus and the perfidy of a seventh-century official named Pepin the Fat.

The publicity-shy Brown traveled from New Hampshire to give evidence on behalf of his publisher, and spent three days on the stand.

Brown acknowledged that he and his wife Blythe read "Holy Blood" while researching "Da Vinci," but said they also used 38 other books and hundreds of documents, and that the British authors' book was not crucial to their work.

Baigent and Leigh claim Brown's novel contains the same central themes as their book. But under cross-examination, Baigent conceded that it had been an exaggeration to say that Brown used "all the same historical conjecture" as their book.

Random House lawyer John Baldwin said that while many of the incidents in "The Da Vinci Code" had been described before, "no one has put them together, and developed and expressed them, in the way Mr. Brown did. That is why he has a best-seller."

Thanks to the case, so do Baigent and Leigh. Their 24-year-old book is selling 7,000 copies a week in Britain, compared to a few hundred before the case began. Baigent's new book, "The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History," has an initial print run of 150,000 copies in the United States.

Judge to Rule on 'Da Vinci Code'

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Now Russian sues Brown over his Da Vinski Code
From Jeremy Page in Moscow
A RUSSIAN art historian has accused Dan Brown of plagiarism in The Da Vinci Code, just four days after a British Court rejected a similar claim.

Mikhail Anikin, a Leonardo da Vinci expert in the Hermitage museum’s Western European art department, said he would give Mr Brown one month to apologise and give up half his revenues from the book or he would take him to court in Russia and the US to seek all his earnings from the novel.

“When I read the book, I was shocked at its poor quality and because it used my ideas,” Dr Anikin said. “This book tells lies about the Church which upset me morally.”

Dr Anikin said he had written a book called Leonardo da Vinci: Theology In Paint in 2000, in which he argued that the Mona Lisa was an allegory for the Christian Church.

Two years ealier, he said, he had shared his views on the painting with some visiting specialists from the Menil Collection of Houston, Texas, who helped to organise an exhibition at the Hermitage. One, he said, had asked if could pass on the ideas to Brown, describing him as “a friend who wrote detective novels”.

Dr Anikin said that he agreed and even gave his theory the name, The Da Vinci Code, but insisted that he should be credited in any book.He never heard back, he said.

The Da Vinci Code was published in 2003 and soon became a global blockbuster.

On Friday, the High Court in London rejected a claim that Brown had plagiarised the 1982 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh. Dr Anikin said he had heard about that result, but was nonetheless confident of his case. He said he had not spoken out earlier because he had an agreement with a Russian magazine giving it exclusive rights to his story.

Clare Harrington, a spokeswoman for Random House, which published The Da Vinci Code, said the company did not want to comment on “unsubstantiated threats”.

“We would suggest that anyone making claims with regard to The Da Vinci Code reads the judgement following the trial at the High Court,” she added.

There was no response from Brown.