THE DA VINCI CODE - BROWN COPYRIGHT LAWSUIT THROWN OUT OF APPEALS COURT

A lawsuit filed against THE DA VINCI CODE author DAN BROWN has been thrown out of a London court today (28MAR07), after a judge ruled the writer did not steal plot ideas from other texts. MICHAEL BAIGENT and RICHARD LEIGH - two of the three authors of THE HOLY BLOOD AND THE HOLY GRAIL - alleged Brown had reproduced themes from their 1982 novel and filed a subsequent lawsuit against Random House, the publisher of both books. Their original suit was dismissed in April 2006, when the London's High Court ruled Brown had not plagiarised themes from the authors' work, but after the ruling in the Court of Appeal, Baigent and Leigh now face legal bills of GBP3 million ($5.85 million). In a statement released after the appeal's rejection, they said, "We believed, and still do, that non-fiction authors would suffer and be discouraged from extensive research if it was found that any author could take another's ideas, 'morph' and repackage them, then sell them on." GAIL REBUCK, head of Random House, hailed the ruling as a victory for "creative writing". She says, "Misguided claims like the one that we have faced, and the appeal, are not good for authors, and not good for publishers. "But we are glad that the Court of Appeal has upheld the original judgment and that, once again, common sense and justice have prevailed, helping to ensure the future of creative writing in the UK." Published in 2003, The Da Vinci Code has now sold more than 40 million copies worldwide.