The
decision leaves two of the three authors of The Holy Blood and The
Holy Grail with a legal bill estimated at up to £3 million.
Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh took Brown's
publisher Random House to court, claiming that The Da Vinci Code
infringed the copyright in their 1982 work by using their theories
as the basis of its plot.
The decision backs an earlier High Court
ruling. Brown, who was a witness in the High Court case, admitted
that Baigent and Leigh's book was a research source, but said that
it was only one of many sources that he used.
The Court of Appeal said that the theories
which underpinned both books were too general to be afforded
protection by UK copyright law. The decision said that copyright
law cannot be used to "monopolise historical research or knowledge
and prevent the legitimate use of historical and biographical
material, theories propounded, general arguments deployed, or
general hypotheses suggested (whether they are sound or not) or
general themes written about."
The decision was
welcomed by Brown's publisher. "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,'" said Gail Rebuck, chief executive of Random House.
"Misguided claims like the one that we have faced, and the appeal,
are not good for authors, and not good for publishers."
"We feel that today is an ominous one for
those who wish to research a book of their own and come up with
their own theories," said Baigent and Leigh. "It is a carte blanche
for those who would rather not bother, but simply take another
author's ideas and adapt them."
The Da Vinci Code has become one of the best
selling books of all time; its plot is based on the theory that
Jesus married Mary Magdelene, that the pair had children and that a
secret society guards the descendants of the pair to this day.
The thrilling romp details the corruption and
violence of the Roman Catholic Church as it tries to suppress the
supposed truth, and claims that the legends of the Holy Grail refer
not to the cup from which Jesus supposedly drank at the last
supper, but to the bloodline of Jesus.
Baigent and Leigh based their appeal on the
claim that the presiding judge in the original case did not
understand the law.
Lord Justice Lloyd concluded: "what he [Dan
Brown] took from HBHG [The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail] amounted
to generalised propositions, at too high a level of abstraction to
qualify for copyright protection, because it was not the product of
the application of skill and labour by the authors of HBHG in the
creation of their literary work. It lay on the wrong side of the
line between ideas and their expression."
Baigent and Leigh argued infringement of their
book's "Central Theme" and said this amounted to substantial
copying. Lord Justice Lloyd disagreed.
He wrote: "the Central Theme was not a theme
of HBHG at all, but rather was no more than a selection of features
of HBHG collated for forensic purposes rather than emerging from a
fair reading of the book as a whole."
The basis of Baigent and Leigh's contention
that the Central Theme was a substantial part of their work
"depended entirely on showing that it was a central theme of the
book and … was really the central theme of the book," said
Lloyd.
"The judge rejected that contention on the
facts," he continued. "It does not seem to me that it was necessary
for him to provide any further explanation for his conclusion that,
whatever elements (if any) were copied from HBHG, they did not
amount to a substantial part of it."
Lord Justice Mummery criticised the trial
judge's approach but agreed with his decision and with Lord Justice
Lloyd's opinion. Mummery added: "In my judgment, the judge rightly
held that the claimants have not established that a substantial
part of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail has been copied, either
as to the original composition and expression of the work or as to
the particular collection, selection and arrangement of material in
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail".
