Out-Law.com has an article about the UK Court of Appeal decision this week that confirmed a lower court ruling that the authors of the Da Vinci Code did not breach the copyright of a book called The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail.

The court has in essence confirmed that there is no copyright in ideas. While the earlier book was used as a research source, the authors used only “generalised propositions, at too high a level of abstraction to qualify for copyright protection“.

The publisher has been quoted as saying: “We believe that the case should never have come to court in the first place, and regret that even more time and money was spent trying to appeal the original judgment,’” said Gail Rebuck, chief executive of Random House. “Misguided claims like the one that we have faced, and the appeal, are not good for authors, and not good for publishers.”

From what I have read about the case, I agree with that view.

Read the Out-law.com article