Authors' court fight threat to Da Vinci Code premiere

[emad]

By Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent



A HIGH Court action being brought by the authors of a non-fiction bestseller, The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail, is threatening the British release of the film adaptation of Dan Brown’s blockbusting novel, The Da Vinci Code.

A judgment from the trial, which is due to open next month, is expected just as the film, which stars Tom Hanks and Sir Ian McKellen, is scheduled for release on May 19.

It could set a precedent in copyright law because there is little clarity over the extent to which an author can dip into someone else’s research.

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who co-wrote The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail 22 years ago, are suing Random House, Brown’s publishers, for an alleged breach of copyright of their material.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-2005828,00.html

[htuttle]

1. "Dip into someone else's research"

From I can tell, the authors of the 'Da Vinci Code' lifted 'Holy Blood/Holy Grail' in it's entirety. I read 'HB/HG' shortly after it came out, and see very little new information in the Da Vinci Code.

[rinsd]

5. Even funnier....

...is that the plot line is also lifted. From his first book Angels and Demons.

[RazzleDazzle]

8. Ideas and facts aren't copyrightable -- at least not in the U.S.

It's the LANGUAGE in which they are couched that may be comprightable. So, for example, you can re-use someone else's recipe for Chicken and Dumplings, but you need to rewrite it including probably listing the ingredients in a slightly different order.

Now, it seems to me good SCHOLARSHIP requires giving credit where credit is due for others' ideas and others' research, but that's not included in copyright law as I understand it (which is as an interested lay person).

[MrModerate]

2. UK's libel and plagiarism laws tend to favor the plaintiff . . .

Over the defendant. It's pretty easy for an aggrieved person to interfere with the publication (or in this case, the release) of material that pisses them off.

[bryant69]

3. It's one of the relitively few things I don't like about England

On the other hand, I don't know how much of a chilling effect on free speech this presumption creates.

Bryant
check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[MrModerate]

11. I've lived and worked a bit in the UK and . . .

There is always that iron hand resting in the velvet glove, ready to grab you by the neck. I mean an "official secrets act?"

Luckily, being Brits an' all, they don't use it very often.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. How do you copywrite history?

If HB/HG is history, as the authors claim, then a fiction based on that history is no more copywrite infringement than if I was to write a fiction based on the assassination of Kennedy. It would have the same precepts, conspiracy theories wrapped around actual events.

If, OTOH, they can prove that their research was spurious and therefore Brown had to have lifted everything from them, without doing any background investigating that would have proved the research false, they may have a valid claim.

[Javaman]

6. What I find interesting about all of this is...

if there is indeed plagiarism, the rule of thumb is to sue AFTER the movie is a success. They stand to make so much more from a suit then. Doing it before only gives the producers of the movie more publicity. Because the Irony would be, if the plug was pulled on the movie and the people plagiarized didn't get as much as they could.

But call me kooky.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. If they'd published the story as 'fiction', they'd have a better case

but by claiming that it was a true story, to get their initial book sales up, they've rather blown that. Presumably the French con-artists who made up the story would be able to claim from Baigent and Leigh if, for some reason, they won their case.

[no_more_rhyming]

9. Agreed

It is fiction....

[Hestia]

10. But what about "Templar Revelations"?

In the Introduction, he states that he did use Holy Blood, Holy Grail as a basis for his plot, along with "Templar Revelations" -- the guys who wrote TR are quite pleased at their book being used. The premise was HB/HG, but TR was used more extensively. Personally, I think the writers of HB/HG should get over it.