DaVinci Copycat

[penmage]

I rarely post about TV shows, but Lost? Was awesome.


This episode was HILARIOUS AND AWESOME IN ITS HILARITY. The magazines and articles kept saying that there would be an episode that would make us care about Nikki and Paolo. And in that episode, they die, so even if we care, they aren't there any more to care about! And I am not even a little sad! And they found all the clues and evidence of the last two seasons before everyone else! But no one cared because they weren't on the A-Team!

Awesome.

In further upsetting news, Dan Brown won his copyright infringment case. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who wrote The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail sued him for stealing thier ideas, that they carefully researched, traced, and came up with on their own. His basic defense was that their work was nonfiction, his was fiction, and it wasn't the same thing at all because he never claimed it was true.

Guys, I read that book. The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, I mean. I found it in a used bookstore in Inverness this summer and spent an hour paging through it. I still wish I had bought it. That book is a careful exploration and discovery of every single idea America finds interesting and innovative in The DaVinci Code. Dan Brown even stole character names from real people in their book.

He stole their ideas. I have no doubt about it. I didn't even know that they were sueing him when I read it, and I was all rightiously angry on their behalf, that he had so blatenly ripped them off.

They did a lot of detailed and difficult research, tracing bloodlines and searching for a secret over many years, and he found thier book, read it, ripped it off and called in fiction, and made millions.

That's not cool. It's not cool that they lost. That gives me a very bad taste in my mouth.

Comments

[shadow-diva.livejournal.com]

My dad read HBHG and loved it. Davinci Code, he thought was crap. And poorly written. Dan Brown is a scuzzball. If you want, check out a book called the DaVinci Hoax. You'd probably enjoy it.

[ciri.livejournal.com]

Heh, I found Lost pretty ridiculous in the editors' attempt to make us think Nikki and Paolo were Really!There! the whole time.

Logically Paolo would have been able to start moving before Nikki though, and they're only in like a 3-foot-deep grave ... surely they will be able to get out of the damn pile of sand? Buffy clawed her way through a box and a real grave!

[arib.livejournal.com]

I read Holy Blood, Holy Grail in high school.

I've never read Da Vinci Code, just because it sounded like a total ripoff.

[iblis-kukl.livejournal.com]

[tablesaw]

It was the right decision. Courts can only enforce copyright infringement, which this wasn't; they can't enforce plagiarism, which this was.

[esc-key.livejournal.com]

He stole their ideas. I have no doubt about it. I didn't even know that they were sueing him when I read it, and I was all rightiously angry on their behalf, that he had so blatenly ripped them off.
Yes but nonfiction and actual events are not copyrightable. Or else Philippa Gregory would never be able to write a novel. We had a discussion about this in one of my NYU classes. I think they would've won the suit if they presented their own book as fiction. But they clung to the fact that it was "real" and therefore they couldn't do anything about it. (Which was silly because their book, I'm told, I didn't read it, was a lot of speculation and guesswork.)

And I feel badly for them because Dan Brown's all famous and his book sucks and took from them (he even admits it; he named characters after them and everything). But I'm not at all surprised they lost. In the US the suit wouldn't have even gotten this far.

[fshk.livejournal.com]

I agree with your commenters that there isn't a copyright violation problem here. If that were the case, most historical fiction would violate copyright.

I own a copy of Holy Blood, Holy Grail (and The DaVinci Code, although I lent it to someone a while ago and never got it back so it's not actually in possession but I don't miss it much). I never finished HBHG, I was mostly reading it because I was interested in Mary Magdalen, but it was a little too academic-y for me at the time. I've always meant to go back and try again.

Here's the thing, though: It's good that Dan Brown passes off most of his novel as fiction now. A lot of what was written in HBHG, which I'm pretty sure was originally published in the early 80s, has since been proven untrue or seriously questioned by biblical scholars. The authors put forth a hypothesis that is fascinating to think about, certainly, but it doesn't hold up when you look at the archaeological evidence collected to date.

Dan Brown's sleazy for ripping off this other work, but he was pretty upfront about what he was doing (I think he mentions HBHG in the book, actually) and there's nothing illegal about it.

Except

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

That's one way of looking at it, however this goes beyond this case to the whole principal of copyright infringement which is that you can't copyright an idea.

And this is a very good thing since any writer that had any following whatsoever would have to refrain from ever using the internet again for fear that some well-meaning fan would pitch him an idea. JMS and Warren Ellis have both been overly cautious about being sued from folks that are in essence pitching their fan fiction ideas. JMS delayed his monk-with-buried-memories story until he could get a release from the person that said "what if one of those erased memory people remembered?" on an online forum. Warren Ellis simply closed up his livejournal and went away (citing a particular livejournal as the reason why he is no longer working)

Either way, this case proves that these two writers really don't have anything to worry about.

As for Dan Brown and the HBHG people - Robert Anton Wilson was writing about the Templars and secret societies from 1975 on. And he's an infinitely better writer than either of these two. Beyond that, I'd hate to think that the HBHG people would turn and sue Garth Ennis since he actually calls his secret organization that is preserving the bloodline of JC The Grail (of course, the bulimic bishop and the inbred descendents are probably not characters these jokers would like to claim)

[http://users.livejournal.com/-twoheadedgirl/]

Hey there. I noticed you on weirdjews (or was it weirdjews2?) and thought you sound interesting-- especially the bit about being simultaneously a writer, wife of a rabbi, and daughter of a rabbi. I hope you don't mind I'm adding you.

Gahl

[penmage.livejournal.com]

You’ve got it slightly wrong—I’m the wife of a rabbi, granddaughter of a rabbi, and a writer but also an editor—but who’s counting? Welcome aboard, nice to meet you. Who are you?

[http://users.livejournal.com/-twoheadedgirl/]

I'm a girl. Not the wife of a rabbi. Or the wife of anyone (at the moment). I like to write. I like to read, and to direct plays. I'm originally from Israel and am recently exploring our Torah and its implcations, which is not something that my upbringing in a secular kibbutz emphasized.