I Thought Infringement Hurt

As I understand copyright law, it's designed to provide protection for the creator or owner of intellectual property. That is, if I write a book about, say, ten-foot mushrooms on Pluto, some other guy can't steal my idea, publish his own book and thereby prevent me from making money off of my own idea.

So why the heck are Baigent and Leigh suing Dan Brown for copyright infringement? Has he somehow hurt sales of their book? I don't think so.

The Independent (UK) reports that Holy Blood, Holy Grail "was selling an average of around 3,500 copies a year prior to publication of The Da Vinci Code. But that figure quadrupled in 2004 in the wake of Brown's success - then doubled again to 31,341 sales in 2005." Prior to the opening of the copyright trial last week, "Holy Blood was still shifting in the region of 500 copies a week. On the first day of last week's court case, sales eclipsed that, selling up to 1,000 copies."

Hmmm... Yup. Darn that Dan Brown. He's killing us!

MORE HERE
The Independent, 05.03.06