Authors’ appeal threatens to re-ignite Da Vinci Code row

LAWYERS for two authors who claim novelist Dan Brown stole their ideas for his blockbuster novel The Da Vinci Code urged Britain’s Court of Appeal yesterday to overturn Brown’s victory in the copyright infringement case.

Lawyers for Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who face a legal bill of over £1.1 million (€1.8m) if the verdict stands, said the lower court ruling “was based on a misunderstanding of the law and of the claim”.

Baigent and Leigh contend Brown stole significant parts of their book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail to use in his novel. Both books are based on a theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child, and that the bloodline continues to this day.

The lawyers said Baigent and Leigh had “expended a vast amount of skill and labour” in writing their book, first published in 1982. “That skill and labour is protectable.”

Brown testified for several days during the High Court hearing last year but he was not in court yesterday.

The claimants’ lawyer, Jonathan Rayner James, said that although the suit had been against the publisher rather than Brown, “in reality, Brown was effectively on trial over his authorship of The Da Vinci Code”.

Mr Rayner James said many questions remained about the role of Brown’s wife, Blythe Brown, who did much of the original research for The Da Vinci Code. She did not testify at the High Court hearing, and Brown said he had wished to protect his media-shy wife from the glare of publicity.

Mr Rayner James said “adverse inferences” might be drawn from her absence. He said Brown’s explanation of her role in his research had been “less than full”.

In April, Justice Peter Smith ruled that Random House, publisher of The Da Vinci Code, had not breached copyright. He said Baigent and Leigh’s claim had been based on a “selective number of facts and ideas artificially taken out of (the book) for the purpose of the litigation”. They were ordered to pay 85% of Random House’s legal bill, estimated at £1.3m.

In a statement, Random House said it regretted “that more time and money is being spent trying to establish a case that was so comprehensively defeated in the High Court”.

The Da Vinci Code has sold 40 million copies since its release in March 2003. A film version starring Tom Hanks was released last year.

The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail — also published by Random House — was a best-seller on its release and climbed sales charts again thanks to publicity surrounding the case.

The appeal is expected to wind up on Friday. A written judgment will likely be delivered at a later date.