UK court again rules in favor of “The Da Vinci Code”

A UK Court of Appeal on Tuesday rejected a copyright lawsuit filed by two authors who accused novelist Dan Brown of stealing significant elements from their book, a second big-win for Brown, who was first cleared in April last of plagiarizing his best-selling “The Da Vinci Code” from an earlier book.

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, two of the three authors of The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail," originally filed the infringement suit in high court last year in April. That time, High Court Judge Peter Smith rejected the copyright-infringement claim by the two historians, who said Brown's blockbuster plagiarized their 1982 non-fiction book.

In his verdict, Judge Smith ruled that while both books explored similar ideas this did not constitute a breach of copyright, and also ordered the historians to pay 85 percent of publisher Random House's legal costs.

Dissatisfied with the High Court ruling, the duo then sued Da Vinci Code publishers Random House, who, coincidentally, also published The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, for copyright infringement.

Again losing their appeal against publisher Random House, the two historians now face legal bills of about US$6 million.

“We believe that the case should never have come to court in the first place, and regret that even more time and money was spent trying to appeal the original judgment,'' Gail Rebuck, chief executive officer of Random House Group, said in a statement.

“Misguided claims like the one that we have faced, and the appeal, are not good for authors, and not good for publishers.”

Baigent and Leigh had contended that Brown stole the ideas of two historians to produce his hugely popular novel. Both books carry same theory: Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child, and the bloodline continues to this day.

The Court of Appeal in London rejected the copyright lawsuit, saying while the two books shared some thematic elements, Baigent's and Leigh's theories were too general to be protected under U.K. law.

Brown's novel has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide since its publication in 2003, while The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail, itself was a bestseller when released 20 years ago.

Disappointed with the ruling, the pair insisted their motive for launching the action had been to protect a five-year "labour of love" in researching their work.

"We believed, and still do, that non-fiction authors would suffer and be discouraged from extensive research if it was found that any author could take another's ideas, 'morph' and repackage them and sell them on," the two historians said in a statement.

Their lawyers said Baigent and Leigh had "expended a vast amount of skill and labor" in writing their book. "That skill and labor is protectable."

Meanwhile, Brown’s lawyer, Jonathan Rayner James, said that although the suit had been against the publisher instead of the author, but Brown was really the one being put on trial for his work.

Brown was not present in yesterday's hearing, but he spent three days in the witness box during the original three-week trial.