Brown did not copy the Da Vinci Code, lawyer says

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON (Reuters) – Author Dan Brown did not copy material
from an earlier book when he came to write “The Da Vinci Code,”
his best-selling religious thriller at the center of a London
copyright case, a lawyer said on Tuesday.

With over 36 million copies of his novel in circulation and
a major Hollywood adaptation due for release in May, the stakes
are high in a case brought against Brown’s British publishers
by historians Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh.

In opening arguments for the defense, publisher Random
House said that much of the “central theme” of “The Holy Blood,
and the Holy Grail,” which the authors say has been
plagiarized, did not in fact appear in The Da Vinci Code.

“A further difficulty for the claimant is that The Da Vinci
Code doesn’t actually have many of the points of the central
theme,” said the publisher’s lawyer, John Baldwin. “We say
that’s fatal to their case.”

On the second day of the High Court trial, Baldwin also
argued that the ideas the historians are seeking to protect are
too general.

“The claimants’ claim relates to ideas at a high level of
generality, which copyright does not protect,” the publishers
said in a document outlining their case.

It adds that the complaint appears to center on the idea in
The Holy Blood book that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, they had
children who survived and married into a line of French kings,
that the lineage continues today and that a secret society
based in France aims to restore the lineage to the thrones of
Europe.

“The claimants contend that their idea is protected by
copyright, whereas Random contend there is no copyright in
information of this nature, and that in any event there was no
copying,” the publisher said.

BROWN ACKNOWLEDGES SOURCE

Commentators point out that a major character in
41-year-old Brown’s book, Sir Leigh Teabing, has a name that is
an anagram of Leigh and Baigent. A third author of the 1982
book, Henry Lincoln, has decided to stay out of the action.

Brown’s defense admits that he looked at The Holy Blood
book, also published by Random House and a bestseller in its
own right, when he was writing his novel. In fact, the
character Teabing refers to it in the narrative.

But lawyers argue that he had already written a synopsis of
The Da Vinci Code before either he or his wife ever looked at
the other work. Brown’s wife does some of his research for him.

Baldwin said one key hypothesis from The Holy Blood did not
appear in the case, and questioned why.

“There’s no doubt that the faking of the Crucifixion is an
important element of their book completely missing from the
central theme,” he said. “The faking of the Crucifixion forms
no part of the Da Vinci Code.”

On Monday, the historians’ lawyer said U.S. author Brown,
who was in court himself, had copied the 1982 book not only as
a source, but as “an essential point of reference.”

Last August, Brown won a court ruling against another
writer, Lewis Perdue, who claimed The Da Vinci Code copied
elements of two of his novels, “Daughter of God” and “The Da
Vinci Legacy.”

Perdue had sought $150 million in damages and asked the
court to block distribution of the book and movie adaptation,
which features Tom Hanks and French actress Audrey Tautou.

The current case is scheduled to last up to three weeks,
Brown may take the witness stand some time next week.