SCO of the literary world?

SCO of the literary world?

I quite some time ago blogged about my impression of the DaVinci code (and my general lack of being impressed by it).
Anyway there was/is a copyright case filed against Dan Brown from a disgruntled author who felt Dan Brown had taken many plot ideas from him and used them in the DaVinci code.
This author even have a blog set up to cover the case. The judge recently came out with a clear non-infringement verdict in the case and it is an interesting read for those of us following the SCO case as it gives one example on how todays judges view copyright (and sorry SCO, general ideas are still not copyrightable).

Even though most book authors seems to think of themselves as the embodiment of creativity and new ideas, the reality is that everything they do someone else have written before them. Sucessful writing is not really about unique plot elements, its about craftmanship, the skill of enganging the reader in whatever story you are telling. A great and relativly fresh plot can not cover over bad writing, but good writing have a good chance of covering over a weak plot. (Although some unappy readers like myself, with the DaVinci code, feel a bit cheated when we get treated to a weak and illogical plot).

I guess next on Perdue’s lawsuit list would be Jacqueline Carey as her Kushiel triology also touch the topic of a feminine divinity and is loosely based on religious history with some added spice.

One thought on “SCO of the literary world?

  1. Thanks for your post re: DVCode/Legacy

    I happen to agree with you that “Sucessful writing is not really about unique plot elements, its about craftmanship, the skill of enganging the reader in whatever story you are telling.” And that latter is what the case is all about.

    OTOH, the comment about Kushiel triology is kind of a cheap shot — clever but just about as applicable to this case as WinXP interface code is to Gnome GUI code.

    Yeah, I know you had NO idea that I’m a Linux user from the beginning and a UNIX guy before that. I was one of the very first people at Lynx Real-Time Systems (BlueCat is their R/T Linux product).

    Anyway, there is a lot morte to this than I think you realize.

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