DaVinci Copycat
Mar. 28th, 2007 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penmageI 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.
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.
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Date: 2007-03-29 02:35 pm (UTC)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.