In spite of all the flak I’ve given his book, I’m very pleased to read that Dan Brown has won his case in court.
The DaVinci Code is NOT plagiarism. It’s simply fiction, which acknowledges sources of inspiration. In short, it does exactly what a novel is allowed to do.
Amid all the strum und drang of the case, and the ever growing publicity and popularity surrounding Dan Brown’s book, it’s important to note that the judge’s ruling makes an critical statement about the freedom of fiction writers to create works — to create universes — and not be hindered by the notion that IDEAS themselves are copyrighted!
In honour of this victory for creative freedom, I present some perscient excerpts from Judge Smith’s ruling, courtesy of the CBC website:
“Mr. Brown is a fiction writer. As a device to writing fiction he is perfectly entitled to dress up factual scenarios to give an illusion that supports his fiction.”
“He is not (contrary to the complaints of the claimants) going into deep and detailed research for these factual matters. Indeed, as he said in his evidence that would be counterproductive; he wishes to create ‘grey’ areas, not black and white.”
“As he has taken matters at a general and low level of abstraction and he has only taken ideas and facts without any of the architecture (if any) he has done nothing wrong. It would be quite wrong if fictional writers were to have their writings pored over in the way The Da Vinci Code has been pored over in this case by authors of pretend historical books to make an allegation of infringement of copyright.”
