The Da Vinci Code copying claims a travesty, says counsel |
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Sun, 19 Mar 2006 17:05
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LONDON: Attorney John Baldwin told Justice Peter Smith at the London High Court Friday that the two authors who claimed The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown stole ideas for his book from their earlier works a "travesty" and their claim for copyright infringement was "in tatters".
Winding up his arguments as the three-week trial is nearing an end, Baldwin said it was clear that Brown's best-selling thriller had not copied from the work by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. He said while several of the incidents narrated in The Da Vinci Code had been described before, "no one has put them together, and developed and expressed them, in the way Brown did. That is why he has a best seller."
Baldwin is in the court representing the publishers of the novel, Random House.
Baigent and Leigh have sued Random House for copyright infringement, alleging Brown "appropriated the architecture" of their 1982 non-fiction "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail."
Brown testified in the court for three days and acknowledged that he had reworked on material by other writers, but he had not copied The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail for his best seller, first released in March 2003.
He had also acknowledged that he and his wife, Blythe Brown, had read The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail while researching The Da Vinci Code, but they had also used 38 other books and hundreds of documents and that The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was not crucial to their work.
The Da Vinci Code has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide and remains high on best seller lists.
Both The Da Vinci Code and The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail are built on theories that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene, the couple had a child and that the bloodline survives.
Baldwin told the court that even if Brown had taken these ideas from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, the claimants have no claim as these ideas are of too general a nature to be capable of copyright protection. "The claimants' claim relates to ideas at a high level of generality, which copyright does not protect."
He claimed that before Brown read The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, he had written a synopsis for the novel, which contained "most of the ideas complained of".
Baldwin presented his arguments in a written format, which extends to 95 pages with some 127 footnotes.
If Baigent and Leigh secures a verdict in their favour, it could stop the release of a movie, The Da Vinci Code, starring Tom Hanks, due on 19 May.
The prosecution is expected to present its closing argument Monday and the judge is expected to give his verdict next week.
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Court hears plagiarism claim against Da Vinci Code 