Maybe that's an unfair label for Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, the two authors of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail that claimed that Brown plagarized their ideas in his best selling The Da Vinci Code. In other words, Baignet and Leigh felt that their thoughts - not just the words they wrote and published - should be copy-wrighted as well.
Today, a British judge sided with Brown, ruling that Brown didn't steal the idea from Baignet and Leigh. Which is a good thing for the novel and novel writers.
Yet the fact that this lawsuit made it as far as it did still irks me. I think Baignet's and Leigh's egos were hurt by the fact that a novelist was better able to engage audiences with the idea that Jesus and Mary Magdeline were married than they were.
“The original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.” ~François-René de Chateaubriand
I think the two authors are upset that even though their ideas may have been somewhat unique and original, their writing - thus themselves as authors - was not. It's a shame that the novel had to be put in such danger just for the sake of two men's bruised pride.
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