The
Da Vinci Code was awarded best book at this year's British Book Awards
and so far more than 30 million copies have been sold in around 40
languages. It has also been adapted into a $100m (£57m) film that stars
Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou and Sir Ian McKellen, and which is due to be
screened at the Cannes film festival 2006.
Mr Baigent and Mr Leigh's non-fiction best-seller The Holy Blood and
the Holy Grail was published by the same publisher and put forward the
theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and that their blood line
has continued down to the present day. The book has proved to be
very popular with conspiracy theorists and a more general readership.
The authors' lawyer Jonathan James told the court: "Dan Brown copied
from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and therefore the publication of
the result by the defendant is in infringement of the copyright of my
client in the United Kingdom."
A
claim that Dan Brown's best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code copied the
ideas of the authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh has gone before
London's High Court.
