Can Fiction Plagiarize Non-Fiction?
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The author of the mega-bestseller "The Da Vinci Code" is being sued in England for stealing the idea behind the controversial book.
Not from another novelist, mind you, but from two non-fiction authors:
Had this lawsuit been filed in an American court, I am certain that it would not survive a motion to dismiss. But the litigation is in Britain, so who knows?
Related Reading:
Not from another novelist, mind you, but from two non-fiction authors:
Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh are suing the world's highest-paid writer, Dan Brown, over allegations that he lifted central themes from their non-fiction book.So consider the implications: If a scientist hypothesizes that flies trapped in amber could contain sufficient blood samples to clone dinosaurs, then no one can write a novel about it without paying royalties? If an astronomer speculates that the first signals we ever receive from outer space will be our own television transmissions sent back to us, no one can make a movie about it without violating copyright? Do the current owners of the Titanic wreck also own the rights to any fictionalized accounts of the disaster? And so on.
In their 1982 work, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, the authors explore theories that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had a child together.
They also propose that the direct descendents of that child are still alive today -- the key concept behind the Dan Brown novel.
Had this lawsuit been filed in an American court, I am certain that it would not survive a motion to dismiss. But the litigation is in Britain, so who knows?
Related Reading:
Related Posts (on one page):
- Can Fiction Plagiarize Non-Fiction?
- Two Silly Lawsuits
Posted by Kip on
27 October 2005
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