There is no copyright in the facts that we based it on, so where's the claim?' 'Ĭopyright specialist Conan Chittham says this case is likely to clarify existing copyright laws over the extent to which an author can use other people's research. 'The publishers of The Da Vinci Code are saying, 'Look, all we have done is taken the basic facts in the original work, the premise about Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and turned it into a novel. But media lawyer Paul Herbert says the suit is without merit. The two authors are suing Random House, the publisher of both books. Authors Michael Baigen and Richard Leigh claim Brown lifted the central theme from their 1982 nonfiction The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.īoth books theorize that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child, and the bloodline continues in a secret society.
But now two British writers say Da Vinci Code author, Dan Brown, stole their ideas. The Da Vinci Code has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and been on the bestseller list for three years.
The controversial Dan Brown novel, The Da Vinci Code, is facing a lawsuit claiming the author stole ideas from another book written more than 20 years ago.
