Dan Brown Wins, Crappy Ideas Not Copyrighted

A London judge has ruled in favor of “The Da Vinci Code” author Dan Brown, explaining that ideas in made-up history books can be stolen from at will.

“The Da Vinci Code” author Dan Brown and his publishing house were cleared of copyright infringement in a British court Friday, with the judge finding the lawsuit based on a contrived and “selective number of facts and ideas.” Authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh had sued Random House, claiming Brown’s best-selling novel “appropriated the architecture” of their 1982 nonfiction book, “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.” “It would be quite wrong if fictional writers were to have their writings pored over in the way DVC (`Da Vinci Code’) has been pored over in this case by authors of pretend historical books to make an allegation of infringement of copyright,” Judge Peter Smith said in his 71-page ruling.

Both books explore theories that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, the couple had a child and the bloodline survives, ideas dismissed by most historians and theologians. “The Da Vinci Code” has sold more than 40 million copies â€” including 12 million hardcovers in the United States â€” since its release in March 2003. It came out in paperback in the United States last week, and quickly sold more than 500,000 copies. An initial print run of 5 million has already been raised to 6 million.

[...]

“Cases like this hopefully will clarify what copyright is all about,” said Allan Adler, vice president for legal and government affairs at the Association of American Publishers. “Copyright doesn’t protect ideas and copyright doesn’t protect facts. That’s why we have genres, fiction and nonfiction, and a number of people can write novels based on the same idea and still have freedom of expression.”

[...]

The case proved a distraction for Brown, who dislikes publicity and has been trying to complete a much-anticipated follow-up to “The Da Vinci Code,” and a costly embarrassment for Baigent and Leigh. They spent two years on the lawsuit and nearly $3.5 million, between their own legal expenses, and Random House’s fees. Though Smith ruled against allowing the authors to appeal, they can still apply to higher courts. . . The authors must also find an interim payment of $600,000 by May 5. In court, their lawyer said at least one of the claimants will have to sell their home to make the first installment. When Leigh was asked if his house would be going on the market, he smiled and said wryly, “what house?”

Yikes. Either the Brits have not developed a contingency fee system of civil litigation (where attorneys take the case and get paid only if they win) or Baigent and Leigh could not find an attorney to take the case on contingency.

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Comments

In the UK, the losers must pay both their legal bills and the victor’s as well.

Posted by Jamie | April 8, 2006 | 09:49 am | Permalink

Yes indeed, “Loser Pays” is a great system to ensure that junk law suits are minimized.

It does have the effect of scaring people away from the courts with weak cases, but unfortunately, not all weak cases are necessarily bad cases.

I’d still like to see “Loser Pays” instituted in the US. At least for a while… say until a couple of generations of greedy lawyers found honest employment digging ditches. Non-greedy lawyers need not fear.

Posted by John Burgess | April 8, 2006 | 06:17 pm | Permalink

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