Baigent v Random House Group Ltd
The use of ideas and historical facts from a non fiction book in a novel was not infringement of copyright, because what was taken was not the expression of the work.
Facts
Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh were authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, a non fiction book which put forward a theory that Jesus had married Mary Magdalene and that their descendants were alive. Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code used a similar theory, and Mr Brown had read their book. They sued the publishers of The Da Vinci Code, claiming that it infringed copyright in their book, by copying its central theme.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal dismissed the claim. Mummery LJ said that copyright protects the expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves, and that the central theme alleged by the claimants was a collection of ideas and facts at too high a level of abstraction to be protected. What Mr Brown had taken from their book was generalised ideas and facts, not the claimants' skill and labour in the form in which they had expressed them. A literary work is not infringed merely because a later work uses its research or theories.
Related cases on copyright: infringement and defences
- Ashdown v Telegraph Group Ltd [2001] EWCA Civ 1142, [2002] Ch 149
- Deckmyn v Vandersteen Case C-201/13, EU:C:2014:2132
- Designers Guild Ltd v Russell Williams (Textiles) Ltd [2000] 1 WLR 2416
- Francis Day & Hunter Ltd v Bron [1963] Ch 587
- GS Media BV v Sanoma Media Netherlands BV Case C-160/15, EU:C:2016:644
- Hubbard v Vosper [1972] 2 QB 84
- Hyde Park Residence Ltd v Yelland [2001] Ch 143
- LB (Plastics) Ltd v Swish Products Ltd [1979] RPC 551
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