Posted on 04/07/2006 12:49:35 PM PDT by Pyro7480
Judge Rules in Favor of 'Da Vinci' Writer
LONDON - A British judge ruled Friday that best-selling thriller "The Da Vinci Code" did not steal ideas from two authors' nonfiction book.
High Court judge Peter Smith rejected a copyright-infringement claim by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail," who claimed that Dan Brown's blockbuster "appropriated the architecture" of their 1982 book.
The favorable ruling will allow the May release of the film, based on the blockbluster and starring Tom Hanks.
"Today's verdict shows that this claim was utterly without merit, I'm still astonished that these two authors chose to file their suit at all," Brown said in a statement, adding that he was "eager to get back to writing."
"I'm pleased with today's outcome, not only from a personal standpoint but also as a novelist."
Random House said the case should have never made it to court.
"We never believed it should have come to court and frequently tried to explain why to the claimants," said Gail Rebuck, chief executive of Random House Ltd.
Catholic ping!
Don't forget about Christians [like me] and Messianic Jews too.
Excellent news! I'm going to lift my ban on Hollyweird to see this movie. Can't wait for Brown's next novel. He's a great read.
The DaVinci Code is fiction and I take it with a grain of salt.
Regardless of the judge's ruling, it's still hard to believe DB came up with this concept, and similar details to tell the story, out of the clear blue sky.
the da vinci code is just another tool of deception for satan... and the people eat it up.
Forget the religious angle -- this is important for all authors. The precedent, in the UK at least, is now that you can't sue for copyright infringement over general ideas and concepts. That's a good thing.
just good lawyerin'
BTW - his wife is his "researcher" - she's the one who lifted the ideas.
Almost nothing comes out of the clear blue sky, but is based at least in a small part on something before.
No one claims he did. But no one can copyright ideas or concepts.
HF
http://www.jesusdecoded.com/leonardo1.php
The Real Leonardo
By Elizabeth Lev
Along with trashing Christianity, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is a veritable museum of errors where Renaissance art is concerned. Art historians have been slow in responding, mostly because it is difficult to know where to start. The novelist’s imaginative notions of iconography may make for best-selling fiction, but they are wildly at variance with what is known about the life and work of Leonardo.
The Da Vinci Code denies Leonardo da Vinci’s identity as a Christian artist, working for Christian patrons and painting Christian subjects. Ignoring the sacred nature of Leonardo’s work, Brown twists the images, inserting them into a tawdry tale of his own making.
The author’s thumbnail sketch of Leonardo cavalierly disregards his birth and training, and dives directly into unsupported claims that Leonardo had “always been an awkward subject among historians, especially in the Christian tradition.” Yet Giorgio Vasari, the father of art history, writing a few years after the death of Leonardo, gives the painter pride of place in his biography, The Lives of the Artists....
I'm not weak-minded...but still, Lucifer & His Fallen Angels keep battering at the doors of my mind with thoughts of The DaVinci Code, doing everything possible to try to make me believe this and other lies of Satan.
Case-in-point: El Diablo just LOVES to decive Anyone, even firm, Jesus-Loving/believing/worshiping Christians, Catholics and Jews. Those who are GOD's are what Satan craves to take away by deception.
Fiction is a lie by definition.
Keep repeating to yourselves: "its only a novel, its only a movie," "its only a novel, its only a movie," et cetera ad infinitum.
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