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The author of the blockbuster novel "The Da Vinci Code" faces an English High Court challenge Monday from two men who claim he stole their ideas. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh are suing their own publishers, Random House, claiming Dan Brown's book draws heavily on their 1982 bestseller "Holy Blood, Holy Grail". Brown's 2003 book has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and earned the American 45 million pounds (66 million euros, 78.5 million dollars) in one year, instantly making the writer one of the world's richest. Baigent's and Leigh's book tackles theories that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married,...

LONDON: The author of the blockbuster novel “The Da Vinci Code” faces an English High Court challenge Monday from two men who claim he stole their ideas. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh are suing their own publishers, Random House, claiming Dan Brown’s book draws heavily on their 1982 bestseller “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”. Brown’s 2003 book has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and earned the American 45 million pounds in one year, instantly making the writer one of the world’s richest. Baigent’s and Leigh’s book tackles theories that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married, had a child, and the...

New film takes Da Vinci Code conspiracy theories and shaky evidence to new heightsJoseph Brean, National PostWhen Ben Hammott discovered the apparent tomb of a Knight Templar at the bottom of a hole in a cave in the countryside of southern France, he thought he had discovered the final resting place of Mary Magdalene, and so he did what any amateur treasure hunter in this age of the Da Vinci Code would have done. He returned with a Hollywood director, lowered a pole into the tomb with "some sticky stuff on the end," removed the shroud from the body, plucked...

<p>DAN Brown, the author of last year's best-selling "The Da Vinci Code," is nothing but a plagiarist, charges the author of two novels that are strikingly similar to Brown's.</p> <p>Author Lewis Perdue is preparing to sue Brown for copyright infringement, claiming "The Da Vinci Code" is in large part stolen from his 1983 novel, "The Da Vinci Legacy" and its 1985 follow-up, "Daughter of God" - which were both recently optioned by "Survivor" creator Mark Burnett.</p>

Jesus conspiracy novel has earned £140 million, but now two academic writers say that their historical work preceded it by 20 years, reports Elizabeth DayIt is the biggest-selling adult fiction book of all time and has earned its author a reputed £140 million with its plot about a global conspiracy to suppress Christ's marriage. The Da Vinci Code has sold more than 12 million copies and has been translated into 42 languages. But now two writers are suing its publishers, claiming that it was copied from their bestseller that first appeared more than 20 years ago. Michael Baigent and Richard...

ITALY: DA VINCI CODE ON SHOW IN MILAN Milan, 24 March (AKI) - While Dan Brown's bestseller The Da Vinci Code is making headlines as the author is facing plagiarism charges and awaiting a ruling in April, the 'real' da Vinci code, a manuscript dating back to the fifteenth century, will be on display at Milan's Castello Sforzesco starting Friday, 24 March, until 21 May. On exhibit is a precious manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci, also known as Codice Trivulziano, featuring notes and designs made from 1487 until 1490. The show will also include codes made during the rule of...

Judge Rules in Favor of 'Da Vinci' WriterLONDON - 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...

A RUSSIAN art historian has accused Dan Brown of plagiarism in The Da Vinci Code, just four days after a British Court rejected a similar claim. Mikhail Anikin, a Leonardo da Vinci expert in the Hermitage museum’s Western European art department, said he would give Mr Brown one month to apologise and give up half his revenues from the book or he would take him to court in Russia and the US to seek all his earnings from the novel. “When I read the book, I was shocked at its poor quality and because it used my ideas,” Dr Anikin...

ONDON - Richard Leigh, a writer of alternative history who unsuccessfully sued for plagiarism over themes in Dan Brown's blockbuster novel "The Da Vinci Code," has died, his agent said Friday. He was 64. U.S.-born Leigh, who had lived in Britain for three decades, died in London on Nov. 21 of causes related to a heart condition, the Jonathan Clowes Agency said. Leigh was co-author of "The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail," a work of speculative nonfiction that claimed Jesus Christ fathered a child with Mary Magdalene and that the bloodline continues to this day. A best-seller on its...

Virtually every British daily has featured a major story on the trial that has just begun in London accusing Dan Brown, the author of the controversial best-seller The Da Vinci Code, of plagiarizing his work from a previous book entitled The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Two of the authors of that book have sued, claiming that the "central theme" of their book was used by Brown to concoct his story; or, as the Daily Mail puts it more bluntly, "You ripped us off, authors accuse Da Vinci Code man." da_vinci_code_Cover.gifBrown’s fictional work has sold more than 40 million...

The far-left New York Times disgraced itself Monday by clearing sitting Vice President Kamala Harris of obvious and blatant plagiarism. Now the expert used by the Times to exonerate Harris says he did not do a full analysis. ... Christopher Rufo dropped the bombshell that Harris “plagiarized at least a dozen sections of her criminal justice book, Smart on Crime.” ... With the help of Dr. Stefan Weber, an internationally famous “plagiarism hunter,” Rufo provided one jaw-dropping example after another of Harris directly copying and pasting paragraph after paragraph into her book that were written by others. She did this...