Perdue Answers Da Vinci Outcome blog
Wednesday, April 4th, 2007I like to think if I make mistakes in my blog, I’m big enough to declare “Mea culpa”.
So when I was contacted yesterday about an inaccuracy in my 2nd April entry Court of Appeal issues last word on Da Vinci Code case, I had to sit up and take notice. Not least as I’d rather be as informed as I can about a subject if I’m commenting on it, but also because of who it was who contacted me.
The inaccuracy was not about the reason for the posting; the final outcome of the UK-based litigation brought against Dan Brown by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, two of the three authors who wrote The Holy Blood & The Holy Grail, over alleged plagiarism, but about another plagiarism case against Brown – involving author Lewis Perdue. Now Mr Perdue’s case I’d just briefly mentioned in passing, but one reader contacted me and felt compelled to put me right on how I’d presented it. I’d written, “In 2005 Brown also faced – and won – a case brought by author Lewis Perdue, who similarly alleged Brown had infringed the copyright of two of his own novels, Daughter of God and The Da Vinci Legacy.”
Well, that wasn’t quite right.
And the reader who contacted me? No less than author Lewis Perdue himself.
This is his comment answering my 2nd April article, which you’ll also find below it, accepted as-is, but which I felt – in the interests of openness, clarity and balance – I’d post here too. Mr Perdue said:
“It may be worth noting that Random House didn’t actually “win” the lawsuit it brought against me to shut me up and stop me from posting examples of plagiarism on my web site.
They also wanted to ruin me financially for having the temerity to defend my original work.
Their lawsuit failed at both of those goals.
The judge in the case ruled that my counterclaim was “reasonable” and said that I did NOT have to pay the $300,000+ in fees that Random House had demanded.
Indeed, Random House got; as far as they did because their high-priced lawyers finagled the system to exclude key expert analysis by U.K. forensic linguist John Olsson proving the plagiarism by Dan Brown.
This hardly puts me in the same category as the Holy Blood, Holy Grail authors.”
See, this is what happens when you’re running a business and keeping a blog about what you see in the IP world at the same time. The juggling gets a little frenetic, and in this case my fully occupied seeing eye didn’t catch everything. Mea culpa, Mr Perdue. Mea culpa.
Lewis Perdue’s blog, which further elaborates on his case, can be found at The Da Vinci Crock. You can also visit his website at www.ideaworx.com.
© 2007 Julian Boote All Rights reserved.
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