Virtually every British daily has featured a major story on the trial that has just begun in London accusing Dan Brown, the author of the controversial best-seller The Da Vinci Code, of plagiarizing his work from a previous book entitled The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Two of the authors of that book have sued, claiming that the "central theme" of their book was used by Brown to concoct his story; or, as the Daily Mail puts it more bluntly, "You ripped us off, authors accuse Da Vinci Code man."

Brown’s fictional work has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide and will soon be a movie starring Tom Hanks. The film is set to be released in May. If the lawsuit is successful, it may threaten the scheduled release of this film in addition to resulting in the award of substantial damages.

The authors are suing Random House, which published Brown’s work of fiction. Ironically, the same publishers previously had published The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Michael Baigent, a New Zealander, and Richard Leigh, an American (the two authors suing) claim that the major thesis of their book (and much of the data used by them to support their argument) was appropriated by Brown in The Da Vinci Code. Both books allege that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and had a child together, with the "bloodline" being protected down through the ages by "secret societies".

Brown has admitted that his wife, Blythe, an art historian who "has been credited with having a major role in the Da Vinci Code" (according to the Daily Mail) used materials from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail in her research for him on the book. The plaintiffs assert that the questions for the court to decide are what did Mr. Brown copy from the other book and whether what had been copied amounted to a "substantial" part of the plaintiffs’ book.

The trial is expected to last nearly a month. British columnists are having a heyday with the Da Vinci Code trial. Francis Warren of the Evening Standard notes that there are some disputes "in which no sane person should take sides" and this is one of them. He makes the point that: "Whatever the outcome of their dispute, none of the parties to this case deserves any sympathy. All are equally guilty of peddling conspiratorial codswallop disguised as truth. Far from being a sinister sect dating back to the 11^th century ("a real organisation", Brown insists in his preface), the Priory of Sion was a hoax devised in the 1590s by French fraudster Pierre Plantard."

Columnist Sam Leith of the Daily Telegraph doesn’t have much use for either the plaintiffs or defendants in this legal action, reserving his best jibes for the plaintiffs: "The delightful things about this case is this: how do its greedy and silly plaintiffs have any hope of winning without shooting their own credibility to tatters? … Baigent and Leigh must be aiming to prove that The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail – which they presented as a work of serious historical scholarship – was actually a piece of fiction. If I am right, then, their argument runs as follows. We flogged a bunch of cobblers to a publisher. Now Dan Brown has flogged the same bunch of cobblers to a publisher, and damn it, he did it better. Can we have some of his money as a consolation prize?"

This is one spectacle that will be fun to watch. I’ll say one thing for the Brits – they sure have a much livelier press than we do have in the States. Maybe, that what competition does for you.

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