The "Da Vinci Court Case" has kicked off in London, with Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh - authors of the 'alternative history' bestseller Holy Blood, Holy Grail (HBHG) - sueing Dan Brown over copyright infringement in his own bestseller The Da Vinci Code (DVC). The Times has a good summary of the arguments behind the case, which are well worth pondering, while The Guardian covers the events of the day.

The case could have huge ramifications for writers, for if Baigent and Leigh win it could raise serious concerns about how to integrate previous research into new material. If someone was to write a novel detailing the controversies at Giza, do they therefore avoid specific theories such as West and Schoch's Sphinx weathering hypothesis, as it could be counted as similar to Baigent and Leigh's "historical conjecture". That term may be significant - ironically, it would appear difficult for B&L to win their case unless they state that their research is not fact, but only conjecture (as objective facts are not copyrightable).

As such, it's difficult to have empathy for B&L - especially considering that the success of DVC has pulled HBHG out of obscurity (after initially selling millions in the 80s), and kept it solidly within Amazon's top 1000 for the past few years. On the other hand, perhaps there is something to their claim...if you were to uncover some fascinating threads of history, put it in book form and only sell a few copies - would you then want to sue an author who took your work and made many millions of dollars from it?

Whatever the outcome, it's likely that the publicity may be more than enough to compensate for the costs of B&L's court case, and will also contribute further to DVC sales and income. As of today, HBHG is at its highest ever Amazon ranking (#9), and is not far from pushing into the top 5 and challenging DVC itself (#4). Perhaps the biggest winner out of all this will be Random House - who publish both books...

The New York Times is reporting that Dan Brown's publisher plans to release a paperback version of the best-selling novel a week before the release of the movie version (mid-May). Sales in the U.S. have been so strong that there has been no need to offer the cheaper version, as the more profitable hardcover version has remained high in the charts for the past three years. However, Brown's publisher is expecting a big response to the cheaper paperback - in conjunction with the movie release - and is printing five million copies (to go with the other 40 million copies or so currently in print!).

Seems like there's plenty of people making a a living out of debunking Dan Brown these days. The latest is David Carr of Beantown Productions, who says his documentary is a hipper, funnier look at the claims in The Da Vinci Code. I wonder how many people have 'debunked' the Priory of Sion now without understanding barely 1% of the history of that particular mystery? Interesting too is how the article mentions the hexagram 'engraved' in the floor of Rosslyn Chapel...which actually doesn't exist! Perhaps someone should start debunking the documentaries and the articles written about them?

The Scotsman has an article about the recent 'Sauniere Society Symposium', a gathering of researchers who are (mostly) dedicated to investigating the Rennes le Chateau mystery and the Priory of Sion, the alleged secret society used by Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code. The Sauniere in question, as many now know, was the priest of the enigmatic church at Rennes le Chateau who is said to have stumbled upon some great secret - some say the secret that Jesus married and had children. Dan Brown subsequently named the art curator of the Louvre in TDVC after this priest (although funnily enough, he didn't talk about the RlC mystery).

Minnesota Women's Press is featuring a short interview with Elaine Pagels, author and Dan Brown-inspirer regarding the 'secret history' of Mary Magdalene (via her books such as The Gnostic Gospels). In the interview, Pagels confides that she doesn't have too much of a problem with Dan Brown riffing on her themes (unlike Baigent and Leigh):

I think that’s one of the ways that scholarly work begins to be known. He’s raising important questions about history, like if we didn’t know Mary Magdalene wasn’t a prostitute, what else don’t we know?

She does point out though, that Brown's portrayal is the flipside to the Catholic view - neither portray her as a leader, instead "they give her exclusively sexual roles".

The UK's Herald has a story titled "Why the Da Vinci Code is just pure and utter fiction", which is actually about a new book by Mark Oxbrow and Ian Robertson, titled Rosslyn and the Grail. This new book is said to be a definitive history of the Chapel, and set to clear up many of the misconceptions about the mysterious 'Christian' edifice. The writer uses the book to bash Dan Brown and TDVC about the head a bit though, which was probably unnecessary. The book sounds worth a look though (we're featuring an essay on Rosslyn by one of the authors, Mark Oxbrow, in the soon-to-be-released Issue 3 of our online PDF magazine Sub Rosa).

TheBookseller.com has an article analysing the merits of the legal battle brewing between Dan Brown/Random House, and (two of) the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail (Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh). It's well worth the read, finishing with these comments:

Some 90% of cases like this settle before they go to full trial, but if Leigh and Baigent do succeed, the implications for Random House are grave. The claimants plan to press for an injunction stopping sales of Da Vinci and the UK release of the Sony/Columbia Pictures film scheduled for May 2006...The case would then go to a separate hearing to assess the level of damages, where Leigh and Baigant would seek "proper recognition" for their work, both in terms of acknowledgement and financial redress - most likely a notional royalty which could cost Random House millions.

Will be interesting to see how this one turns out - if Baigent and Leigh are successful, that will be almost front page news (stopping one of the biggest movies of the year).