Excerpt: City of Brass

[Hussar]

Sorry Treebore, my Google Fu is not up to the task. I could find lots about the fact that they were suing, but, not the final results.

 

[pemerton]

The most relevant point is they lost. No copyright infringement.

I don't think that this is the most relevant point, because it doesn't establish what you are contending, namely, that word-for-word copying is a necessary element of infringement. It was not because of the absence of word-for-word copying that the case was lost.

I haven't read the judgement (I'm not a copyright lawyer) but a quick Google brought up this BBC report and discussion. The following paragraphs are particularly relevant:

Since there is no copyright in an idea, any claim for breach of copyright must rest on the way that the idea is expressed.

In this case, it was described as the "architecture" or "structure" of the work, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

The plaintiffs claimed that this structure - the central theme - had been lifted by Dan Brown for the Da Vinci Code.

The judge rejected this claim even though he said that Brown had copied some language from the earlier book.

But to suggest, as Gail Rebuck, the chief executive of Random House, did outside court, that the judgement represented a significant victory for creative freedom, is probably going too far.

The judge himself acknowledged that nothing in the plaintiffs' case would have stultified creative endeavour or extended the boundaries of copyright protection.

In launching their claim, the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, were aware of a similar High Court case brought in 1980 by an author called Ravenscroft, who wrote a non-fiction work titled The Spear of Destiny.

Co-incidentally, it also had Christ's fate as its central theme. Ravenscroft argued successfully that the novelist, James Herbert, had infringed his copyright by using the same characters, incidents and interpretation of events in parts of his thriller, The Spear.

But, as copyright lawyer, David Hooper, points out, the key issue is the amount of a book, both in quantity and quality, which is copied by someone else.​

US law obviously differs from the law of the UK and other Commonwealth countries, but to the best of my knowledge it does not differ in this particular respect.

The reason it went to court is their claim of infringement was rather unique, so it went to court to establish precedence just as much as to determine liability.

This is not a very accurate description of how judicial decision-making in superior courts works in the Anglo-Australian-Candadian-New Zealand legal systems.

 

[Treebore]

I don't think that this is the most relevant point, because it doesn't establish what you are contending, namely, that word-for-word copying is a necessary element of infringement. It was not because of the absence of word-for-word copying that the case was lost.

I haven't read the judgement (I'm not a copyright lawyer) but a quick Google brought up this BBC report and discussion. The following paragraphs are particularly relevant:

Since there is no copyright in an idea, any claim for breach of copyright must rest on the way that the idea is expressed.

In this case, it was described as the "architecture" or "structure" of the work, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

The plaintiffs claimed that this structure - the central theme - had been lifted by Dan Brown for the Da Vinci Code.

The judge rejected this claim even though he said that Brown had copied some language from the earlier book.

But to suggest, as Gail Rebuck, the chief executive of Random House, did outside court, that the judgement represented a significant victory for creative freedom, is probably going too far.

The judge himself acknowledged that nothing in the plaintiffs' case would have stultified creative endeavour or extended the boundaries of copyright protection.

In launching their claim, the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, were aware of a similar High Court case brought in 1980 by an author called Ravenscroft, who wrote a non-fiction work titled The Spear of Destiny.

Co-incidentally, it also had Christ's fate as its central theme. Ravenscroft argued successfully that the novelist, James Herbert, had infringed his copyright by using the same characters, incidents and interpretation of events in parts of his thriller, The Spear.

But, as copyright lawyer, David Hooper, points out, the key issue is the amount of a book, both in quantity and quality, which is copied by someone else.​

US law obviously differs from the law of the UK and other Commonwealth countries, but to the best of my knowledge it does not differ in this particular respect.

This is not a very accurate description of how judicial decision-making in superior courts works in the Anglo-Australian-Candadian-New Zealand legal systems.

From what you copied of the report the theme was being claimed as being stolen. Well, God, Jesus, Christian religion is not a theme that can be copyrighted. Plus, apparently, there was something that could have been copied, but was not enough? I do find that confusing. But to say, "Hey! I wrote about religious history, so you can't!" yeah, that isn't copyrightable.

I don't know about Anglo-Australian-New Zealand law, but I do know enough about Canadian law to know setting precedence is just as important in Canadian law as it is in US law. Or at least close enough in equivelancy.

 

[pemerton]

From what you copied of the report the theme was being claimed as being stolen. Well, God, Jesus, Christian religion is not a theme that can be copyrighted. Plus, apparently, there was something that could have been copied, but was not enough? I do find that confusing. But to say, "Hey! I wrote about religious history, so you can't!" yeah, that isn't copyrightable.

The argument was not that the book had the same topic, but that it had the same detailed structure. This was not proven. But had it been proven then a breach of copyright would have been established without having to prove word-for-word copying.

I don't know about Anglo-Australian-New Zealand law, but I do know enough about Canadian law to know setting precedence is just as important in Canadian law as it is in US law. Or at least close enough in equivelancy.

My point was that there is no such thing in English or similar Commonwealth law as trying a case to establish precedent as well as trying it to establish liability. Cases are tried to establish liability, and that is all. Full stop. In the course of establishing liability, cases heard in superior courts are able to establish precedents.

Appeals courts such as the House of Lords or the High Court of Australia may use likely precedential significance as one of the grounds on which to permit appeal, but that is not a ground on which a first instance court can refuse to hear a case, nor a ground on which it can refuse to grant summary dismissal of a case when the pleadings show no cause of action.

 

[avin]

And long ago we were talking about City of Brass...

 

[Phaezen]

And long ago we were talking about City of Brass...

A little Brasso, some elbow-work and I think the city will shine

Phaezen

 

[Treebore]

And long ago we were talking about City of Brass...

Well then I'll leave the topic of copyright issues with CoB by pointing out that all efforts to disprove what I said were done with cases of copyright violation that FAILED to prove copyright infringement occurred.

So like I said, no one needs to be concerned about such issues with the products because nothing illegal was done. Otherwise you would have already seen lawsuits filed.

So buy CoB if you wish.

 

[Qualidar]

The "Fork to New Thread" button is a wonderful tool, people. Feel free to try it out sometime.