On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 12:01 PM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
The way you've worded this, does not make it clear whether you are stating that: A) "The court discussed it... and in THEIR discussion mentioned 'taking plotlines'" or B) "The court discussed it.. and it's my opinion that 'taking plotlines'....
Can you clarify and if possible cite to the opinion discussion details
Sorry for that. Yes, they did discuss the point directly because it was the key issue in the appeal.
The trial judge had found that Dan Brown did copy from the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (HBHG) in writing the Da Vinci Code (DVC), but that what he copied was "at too high a level of abstraction" to constitute protectable expression, and in any event was not a substantial part of HBHG. The main issue in the appeal was whether the trial judge had adopted the correct tests to reach this conclusion.
All of the judges confirmed the trial judge's decision that what was copied was too highly abstracted from HBHG. Probably the clearest statement of this is from Mummery LJ at paragraph 154:
"The position is that the individual elements of the Central Theme Points distilled from HBHG in the VSS are not of a sufficiently developed character to constitute a substantial part of HBHG. In the words of the judge they are 'too generalised' to be a substantial part of HBHG. They are an assortment of items of historical fact and information, virtual history, events, incidents, theories, arguments and propositions. They do not contain detailed similarities of language or 'architectural' similarities in the detailed treatment or development of the collection or arrangement of incidents, situations, characters and narrative, such as is normally found in cases of infringement of literary or dramatic copyright."