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News Briefs 24-01-2006

Happy Birthday to my beautiful Tonita!

Quote of the Day:

The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post “Thou shalt not steal”, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” and “Thou shalt not lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.

George Carlin

Editor
  1. Holy Blood, Holy Grail
    Isn’t that kind of killing their own ideas? Isn’t the facts presented in Holy Blood, Holy Grail supposed to be used for informative purposes? How can the authors complain about their “architecture” being stolen when it is fact? How can you copyright a documented fact? To my knowledge, maybe I’m wrong, I don’t recall DaVinci Code ever going into depth about the Merovingian dynasty, or the Cathars.

    This lawsuit seems to me like just a way to sell more Holy Blood, Holy Grail books. Say the authors do win. They cancel the movie everybody gets pissed at them and never buy their book. Say they don’t win, movie goes on as planned, and they sell more books, becuase people will want to see what all the hub-bub was all about. They win and let the movie go and take a cut of the sales, everybody gets rich and everybody gets happy. The latter of these seems the most probable.

    “Chance Favors the Prepared Mind”

    1. Or…
      The other possibility – publishers/movie producers settle out of court to save any concern (they are playing in the hundreds of millions of dollars room).

      Peace and Respect
      Greg
      ——————————————-
      You monkeys only think you’re running things

      1. HOLA!
        The main gist of Baigent and Leigh’s (is Leigh involved? I thought it was only Baigent) lawsuit is that Brown plagiarised the structure of their ideas as presented in the narrative of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and not just the idea of Jesus Christ fathering children with Mary Magdalene itself. The structure they used to present this theory in their book is what they believe Brown plagiarised for The Da Vinci Code.

        I don’t think Baigent and Leigh have any right to monopolise the theory of Jesus Christ fathering children with Mary Magdalene. This theory has been discussed by many people before them, even if they are the first to publish a mass-market book about the subject.

        Brown has never claimed the theory to be his own, so there really is no case of plagiarism. If The Da Vinci hadn’t have been such an over-hyped mega-success, I doubt Baigent and Leigh would even care. It’s the popularity and attention Brown’s book receives, and the lack of attention Baigent and Leigh are getting in the wake of his success, that troubles them. They could have used Dan Brown’s success in a more positive manner to promote their own work. I was working at a bookstore when the Dan Brown hysteria exploded, and I recommended Baigent and Leigh’s book to every customer who purchased The Da Vinci Code. Only a rare few bought it: the majority were only reading The Da Vinci Code because everyone else was.

        I once accused Stel Pavlou of plagiarising Robert Bauval and John Anthony West (among others) for his novel Decipher, but he put me back in my box and correctly pointed out that he had included a bibliography, and I admitted that I had been wrong to accuse him so. He had wanted to include a foreword thanking the authors whose books and theories he had used for his novel, but his publisher refused, and they even refused to include the bibliography (but thankfully, Pavlou won the right to include it). As a fiction writer myself, I should have known better, and now I do. I side with Dan Brown.

        The world of publishing is all about money, and the world of academic theories is an intellectual minefield where egos are thinner than egg-shells. I’m watching this lawsuit like my life depends on the outcome — because it does. As a wannabe fiction writer who draws inspiration from archaeology, paranormal mysteries and real world theories and academic ideas, my future hangs in the balance. If Baigent and Leigh wins, then it’s going to be disastrous for writers and publishers. I shudder to think how it’ll affect other authors, such as Daniel Easterman, John Case, Ed Kovacs, Matthew Reilly … it’ll open the floodgates for such authors to be sued left, right and centre. I hope not.

        But for chrissakes, it’s just fiction! Alas, big bucks (and bigger egos) are at stake.

        Well, whatever the case, I’m still going to write my novels exactly as I see fit, and I hope Dan Brown, Stel Pavlou, Matt Reilly, Ed Kovacs and others like them continue to write their own books exactly as the inspiration hits them, too.

        In the words of U2:

        And you can dream
        So dream out loud
        And don’t let the bastards grind you down

        DREAM OUT LOUD,

        Rick

        PS I’m still without a home computer (my housemate lent me his iBook for this little message), but I hope to be back doing the news from a friendly internet cafe next week. The only problem is I’ll have to get dressed and won’t be able to do the news in my bedroom wearing only my underwear.

      2. Caseless
        Hi,

        I think you’re right there Greg, they’re only interested in money. The british hi court may dismiss the matter as frivolous and refuse opening a can of worms with lots of suits to follow from other writers. It’s likely to be turned down.
        However in the US where l(aw)yers are abundant and just waiting to get their hands on such a legal extortion possibility, things might turn out different, stifeling imagination and creativity is a mere bonus to these patented nasties.
        Anyway Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh will have to declare they made it all up to stand any chance of winning this case. Losers all around -except for the patented l(aw)yers naturally.

        ” do unto others as you would have them do unto you “

    2. Holy Blood Holy Grail
      The dispute between Baigent and Leigh and Dan Brown is more complicated than you think.

      Since the death of Pierre Plantard in 2000, it has come to light that the documents he provided to Henry Lincoln, one of the authors of Holy Blood Holy Grail, were hoaxed.

      Plantard was a conman. He and his partners in crime (Gerard de Sede and Philippe de Cherissey) founded the Priory of Sion in 1956, and they invented, among other documents, a list of Grandmasters of the Priory of Sion, to make it look like the Priory of Sion had a history.

      Gerard de Sede has admitted to the fraud.

      De Sede claimed that the purpose of the fraud was to make money from books, but I believe there was a more sinister purpose – to make it appear that Pierre Plantard, as the most recent Grandmaster of the Priory, was the proper descendant of the Merovingian dynasty, and hence the rightful heir to the throne of France.

      Henry Lincoln was taken in by this fraud, and added to it his own fanciful idea that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had children and moved to the south of France, and that their descendants were the Merovingian kings. This became the basis of Holy Blood Holy Grail. But it is not fact as you have asserted but a mixture of fantasy and fraud.

      Lincoln has recently dissociated himself from the whole thesis of Holy Blood Holy Grail, and this is probably the reason he is not appearing in court alongside Baigent and Leigh, though the reason he has given is that he is too ill.

      Now, given that Holy Blood Holy Grail is largely fantasy, it will be interesting to see how the court decides on the issue of borrowing. Can Dan Brown be found guilty of stealing the “architecture” of Holy Blood Holy Grail when it can be shown that the research on which it is based is in error?

      What kind of a case can Baigent and Leigh, who still maintain their research is factual, mount, when it can be shown their research is itself tainted?

      And there is another point which everyone is overlooking with regards to The Da Vinci Code. The “great secret” revealed at the end of the book is that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had children, but recent scholarship is of the opinion that neither Jesus nor Mary Magdalene existed as historical figures.

      So where does that leave the research of both Dan Brown and the authors of Holy Blood Holy Grail?

      There are several websites you can go to which will spell out everything for you. Just google “pierre plantard hoax”. And for the non-existence of Jesus, see http://www.jesusneverexisted.com.

      PS I don’t like your moniker. It sounds like you kill prostitutes.

  2. Happy Birthday, Tonita!
    I hope you didn’t get a TDG coffee mug and a copy of Dan Brown’s “The Solomon Key” by Greg Taylor for your birthday! 😉

    Did Greg remember your birthday, or did you have to peel him away from the computer and remind him?

    It’s easy to forget our personal lives, behind the anonymous distance of computers. I only have myself to look after (and even that’s more than I can handle, I need a personal assistant) … but Greg has a FAMILY. I have enormous respect for the work Greg puts into the TDG project and community, whilst juggling the commitments of a wife and kids. No wonder he drinks so much coffee in that beautifully designed, ergonomic and amazingly deep TDG coffee mug that are on sale for a very affordable price. *winkwink*

    Speaking of coffee ….

    *sigh* I miss my computer.

  3. The other lawsuit
    I may have posted this link here before, (I know I have posted it on some other boards, just not sure about here), but Dan Brown/Random House have another lawsuit they are dealing with as well. Lewis Purdue wrote 2 books called “The DaVinci Legacy” & “Daughter of God”. They were both published well before “TDC” and there are many similarities between Perdue’s books and “TDC”. I have read both of them and (imo)there are too many similarities between them and “TDC” to brush off as coincidence. Of course, that’s just my opinion, it’s possible that it is a complete coincidence. If they were both working from the same source material, ie. “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” then Dan Brown could have just come up with a similar story without ever having seen/read/heard of Lewis Purdue. Anyway, here’s the link to Purdue’s webpage with his side of the story and links to documents pertaining to his lawsuit.
    http://www.davincilegacy.com/Infringement/

    p.s. “Daughter of God” was a better read than “TDC” or “The DaVinci Legacy”, imo.

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