Author Topic: Dan Brown is being sued  (Read 2775 times)

Fellfrosch

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Dan Brown is being sued
« on: February 28, 2006, 11:59:10 AM »
Since there's no law against "writing lame books," they're suing him for plagiarism: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11589138/?GT1=7756
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Nessa

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Re: Dan Brown is being sued
« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2006, 12:05:01 PM »
Not like the whole Jesus/Mary M thing is a new theory, or anything, that it's an original idea from Baigent and Leigh.

And why France? Why would they move to live in France of all places?
« Last Edit: February 28, 2006, 12:06:01 PM by MrsNessaC »
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Re: Dan Brown is being sued
« Reply #2 on: February 28, 2006, 12:13:31 PM »
And the kicker is this: you can't copyright/patent ideas, just the words. I thought it was open knowledge that the 1982 book was one of his nonfiction research sources.
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Nessa

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Re: Dan Brown is being sued
« Reply #3 on: February 28, 2006, 12:18:42 PM »
"The DaVinci Code" is a work of fiction. He didn't try to pass it off as nonfiction, as competition for the other book. They're grasping at straws.
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Re: Dan Brown is being sued
« Reply #4 on: February 28, 2006, 01:14:00 PM »
I find this dryly amusing.  If you could sue just for mimic of ideas, particularily in works of fiction, not just specific word usage, then about half of the fantasy novels out there would be in trouble as they borrow themes from each other and from the masters in the field all the time.  This can be said of just about any genre.  Every murder mystery book has a similar theme.  Someone dies.  Someone else finds out about it and solves the mystery of how the murder happened.  Heavens, CSI does that every week, should mystery novelists be suing the network?

I think more than anything this isn't a matter of 'hey, he used our stuff' but more one of, 'not only did he use the same stuff we did' ie history, rumor and conjecture, 'but he got rich off of it.  That's not fair!  We should have gotten rich off of it.'  In my mind this is more a lawsuit about publicity and cash than artistic issues.
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Spriggan

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Re: Dan Brown is being sued
« Reply #5 on: February 28, 2006, 01:20:56 PM »
Quote
And the kicker is this: you can't copyright/patent ideas, just the words. I thought it was open knowledge that the 1982 book was one of his nonfiction research sources.


That's the problem, he used the book yet doesn't give credit for it in the back with the rest of the reference books.
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Parker

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Re: Dan Brown is being sued
« Reply #6 on: February 28, 2006, 01:35:29 PM »
It's not like he copied a plot--he used someone else's research without giving it credit.  And from what I heard at the conference panel I went to on the matter, he pretty much based almost all of the book on that research, concept-wise.  I don't know the law about this, but I'm interested to see what the outcome will be.

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Re: Dan Brown is being sued
« Reply #7 on: February 28, 2006, 02:54:55 PM »
While I don't think he can lose this lawsuit, it's hard for me to get really upset about the possibility of him losing.

It's like the Austrian law that sentences holocaust deniers to jail time. Sure I think that's a fundamental violation of free speach, but since the people being jailed are such social rejects, it's really tough for me to get riled about it.

Skar

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Re: Dan Brown is being sued
« Reply #8 on: February 28, 2006, 07:03:28 PM »
Speaking of holocaust deniers and Anti-semites in general... Long, hopefully amusing, story to follow:

I watched a Canadian news show once where they were interviewing/villifying their guest.  He was a man who had written a book about how "lizardmen" (as in intelligent reptile beings left over from the dinosaur age who look like humans) were behind a huge plot to take over the world through the U.N. and multi-national banks.

The hosts, Canadian News Personalities I presume, brought the discussion around to where they started, rather aggressively, accusing him of substituting the Lizardmen for Jews.  They figured he was an anti-semite disguising his "Jews" as lizardmen.  It got pretty heated and then finally the author, who denied it and insisted the whole time that he was serious about the lizardmen, asked the interviewers why they thought his lizardmen were stand-ins for Jews.  

At that point they realized that they'd have to give credence to (and look like they believed in) the anti-jew rhetoric the whackos subscribe to if they were going to stick it on his lizardmen and they stopped, looked embarrassed and changed the subject.  It was hilarious.

It occured to me though, that if the guy really was using lizardmen as stand-ins for "Jews," it was pretty clever.
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Re: Dan Brown is being sued
« Reply #9 on: March 01, 2006, 09:23:30 AM »
that is totally awesome.

House of Mustard

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Re: Dan Brown is being sued
« Reply #10 on: March 01, 2006, 01:45:56 PM »
Having spent a lot of time reading conspiracy theories lately, I must say that the lizardmen idea is fairly widespread.  The official term is the "Reptilian/Aryan Elite".
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Skar

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Re: Dan Brown is being sued
« Reply #11 on: March 01, 2006, 02:03:16 PM »
Really?  How widespread is widespread?  Are THEY serious?
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House of Mustard

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Re: Dan Brown is being sued
« Reply #12 on: March 01, 2006, 02:44:10 PM »
Not as widespread as they used to be.  In 2002 the Andromedans began wiping them out.  I haven't heard how the war is going, though.

Incidentally, the main Reptilian/Aryans live under the poles.
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House of Mustard

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Re: Dan Brown is being sued
« Reply #13 on: March 01, 2006, 02:47:16 PM »
From wiki:

Quote
Nazi mysticism is a term used to describe a quasi-religious undercurrent of Nazism; it denotes the combination of Nazism with occultism, esotericism, cryptohistory, and/or the paranormal. It generally ascribes a religious significance to the person of Adolf Hitler and his doctrine.

Other theories involve Hitler having escaped to the Antarctic, where he joined with a subterranean dinosauroid master race[1], with whom he now travels inside UFOs underground, generally beneath the South Pole or throughout the center of the hollow earth[2], but sometimes to a Nazi moon base as well.

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Spriggan

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Re: Dan Brown is being sued
« Reply #14 on: March 01, 2006, 04:20:02 PM »
UFO fanatics are really into the Reptilian thing too, and so are Illuminati/NWO believers.  Heck a lot of them believe that the British royal family and the Bushs, Clintons and several other world leaders are breads of shape-shifting Reptilians.

Just for fun, links to forum threads on Above Top Secret about this stuff.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread108535/pg1
(in this one someone makes the case that StarTrek is part of the above conspiracy)

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread194070/pg1

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread195144/pg1

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread112635/pg1

Nazi stuff

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread14392/pg1

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread21085/pg1

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread188552/pg1
« Last Edit: March 01, 2006, 04:30:08 PM by Spriggan »
Screw it, I'm buying crayons and paper. I can imagineer my own adventures! Wheeee!

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