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Dan Brown refutes copying claim

13/03/2006

American author Dan Brown has strongly refuted claims that he lifted ideas and themes from another book for his hit novel The Da Vinci Code.

The high court in London is hearing claims by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh that the bestselling author used the idea they propagated in their 1982 book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, in his novel.

The authors are suing Random House, which publishes both The Da Vinci Code and their own book in the UK, for theft of intellectual property.

Mr Brown's novel rests on the idea that the Catholic church has covered up the fact that Jesus Christ had a child with Mary Magdalene and that their descendents live on – an idea put forward in Mr Baigent and Mr Leigh's non-fiction book.

But appearing as a witness at the court today, Mr Brown dismissed the authors' claims, pointing out that the main theme of his book has been written about by many others.

"For them to suggest, as I understand they do, that I hijacked and exploited their work is simply untrue,' Mr Brown said in statement released outside court.

"Mr Baigent and Mr Leigh are only two of a number of authors who have written about the bloodline story."

Mr Brown also said he was "astounded" at the plagiarism suit and insisted that he had gone "out of his way" to reference the authors' work in his book.

"Messieurs Baigent and Leigh are only two of a number of authors who have written about the bloodline story and yet I went out of my way to mention them for being the ones who brought the theory to mainstream attention," the statement added.

Today marks the start of a third week of a trial expected to be concluded by the end of the week.

Mr Baignet and Mr Leigh have already given evidence and if the judge finds in their favour he could issue an injunction order against further publication of The Da Vinci Code, which has already sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, been translated into 44 languages and is the basis for a film starring Tom Hanks and Sir Ian McKellen, due for release later this year.

Mr Brown, who named the villain of his novel Leigh Teabing, - an anagram of the two authors - is estimated to have earned £45 million from his book's first year of sales and was recently named as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people.

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