Da Vinci code copying claims 'a travesty'

An accusation that millionaire author Dan Brown stole the ideas for his blockbuster The Da Vinci Code was a “travesty”, a High Court judge heard today.

Mr Justice Peter Smith was told that a claim alleging plagiarism brought by two other writers was now in “tatters”.

The submissions were made by a QC representing publishers Random House who are contesting a breach of copyright claim brought against them by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, co-authors of a non-fiction work, The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail.

Mr Brown, one of the highest paid authors in history, has given evidence during the trial defending his publisher against claims that his internationally successful novel lifts from Baigent and Leigh’s book, itself a bestseller after it was published in 1982.

The American author has described claims that the central theme of The Da Vinci Code (DVC) was copied from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (HBHG) – also published by Random – as “completely fanciful”.

Making his closing submissions today, John Baldwin QC, for Random House, said it was a “travesty” to suggest that Mr Brown had copied the central theme of HBHG and told the judge: “The claimants’ case is now in tatters.”

Mr Baldwin said Mr Brown “did not copy HBHG”.

It had never been an issue that Mr Brown looked at HBHG during the process of writing his “hugely successful thriller”.

“Indeed the book, along with three others, is even referred to by one of his characters.

“But HBHG did not have anything like the importance to Mr Brown which the claimants contend it had.”

Mr Baldwin said: “It is clear that he had considered and researched all of the matters which are the subject of the claimants’ claim before he looked at HBHG.

“His evidence, which we submit should be accepted, is that he did not look at HBHG until a comparatively late stage in his research for DVC.”

When giving his evidence to the court Mr Brown agreed that his novel had been written after joint research by himself and his wife, Blythe, at their home in Exeter, New Hampshire.

But he said that The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail was just one of many books he had studied and from where he took the idea that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, they had children who survived and married into a line of French kings and that the bloodline survives until the present day.

He said the accusation that he had lifted the overall design of The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail – its logic and its arguments – and used them in The Da Vinci Code was “simply not true”.

Mr Brown said he was “astounded” by Baigent and Leigh’s decision to “file this plagiarism suit”.

Baigent and Leigh claim that The Da Vinci Code, which has sold over 40 million copies worldwide, earning the author £45 million in one year, is an infringement of their copyright.