U.S.-born writer who sued over Da Vinci Code dies

Richard Leigh, a writer of the world's relevant yet unconventional historical stories has died, his agent said Friday. He was 64. He is also renowned for his attempt unsuccessfully to sue for plagiarism over themes in Dan Brown's blockbuster novel "The Da Vinci Code."

Leigh, born in New Jersey in 1943 to a British father and Austrian mother lived in Britain for three decades, died in London on Nov. 21 of causes related to a heart condition. Leigh was co-author of "The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail," a work of exploratory nonfiction that claimed Jesus Christ fathered a child with Mary Magdalene and that the bloodline continues to this day.

Firstly, a best-seller on its release in 1982, the book has gone onto gain new readers after Brown's thriller, which explored related themes. The book has sold more than 40 million copies, and was released in 2003. He along with co-author Michael Baigent sued Brown's publisher Random House, claiming "The Da Vinci Code" "appropriated the architecture" of their book. A third "Holy Blood" author, Henry Lincoln, was not named in the lawsuit.

However, in April 2006, High Court judge Peter Smith threw out the claim, on the grounds that the ideas in dispute were too general to be protected by copyright.

Ironically, the prominent court case sent "Holy Blood" back up the best-seller lists, and Baigent and Leigh were presented with a bill estimated at nearly 3 million pounds (US$6.2 million) after the judge ordered them to pay 85 percent of Random House's legal costs.

Marianne Pearl grumbles to an online reporter against the Wall Street Journal

Do we really have to hear about this woman's lost for the rest of our lives... really! I feel for Daniel Pearl's son, his mother, his father, and anyone who is privately revisiting the awful events that have happen to him and them as much as or more than Mariane herself. There are approximately 3000 victims in the 911 tragedy which happened here in America and we do not hear daily or weekly accounts of their ordeals or anguish as it has been more recent and equally if not more so than Marianne Pearl's suffering.

If Mariane has not noticed there is a war ongoing in Iraq and hundred of thousands of American soldiers whose lives as important to Mariane's husband's lost life who are not returned to their families or their love ones because of their own deaths at the hands of a senseless war America continues to fight against the public majority belief and wishes. We are all suffering in one way or another or of some sort of loss in our personals lives. Some of us are still fighting for compensation for injustices conducted directly against us. From what I understand Mariane has been compensated, paid plenty of attention to thus far and even have a film about HER story. I would much rather know more about her deceased husband's life than her ax to grind with the Wall Street Journal in the world of authority rights over all others.

She said at party on Thursday's party at Trump World Tower hosted by Glamour editrix Cindi Leive and Glamour publisher Bill Wackerman for Pearl's book, "In Search of Hope: The Global Diaries of Mariane Pearl" - a book based on the column she writes for the magazine - Pearl grumbled to an online reporter: "I think the Wall Street Journal has one person covering Africa. Celebrities are doing the work that journalists are not. We can't afford to be cynical about that."

Oh, please some celebrities need and use Africa as much as the cover and smoke screen for all sorts of personal shortcomings and deceptions. In any rate those who are of no real merit are the same celebrities just blowing nonsense at the wind and have nothing better to do than complain about what everyone isn't doing as if their self imposing importance is so above us all. It sounds like to me that Mariane Pearl has been spending to much with or reading into too much of Ms. Jolie's “I’M SUCH A GIANT CELEBRITY... LOOK AT ME philosophies. Enough already!

As for the Wall Street Journal at least they are not front page flaunting celebrity-ism “we’re such a couple or we're such a family crap.” More power to you WALL STREET JOURNAL! You have my VOTE. I just don’t get her… at all! There are widows everywhere in the world… why doesn’t Mariane Pearl also or instead tell their story not just woman’s stories, but the stories of how they go on with their lives and stay strong for themselves and those they are responsible for instance if she does not already rather than this petty nonsense.

It’s not like she was set up by British corrupt police officers, denied justice for eights years, betrayed by everyone she knew, and her man taken over and exploited by some empty headed actress and her orphans in addition to her lost years ago. No, it happened to Daniels’ family too not just her! She has not been made destitute through her fight, denied compensation or justice, or a platform to by heard. Instead we still hear this spiteful clamor when one would summarize she has been more than fairly treated under the circumstance as has her son. Some of us do not have the luxury of getting our voices heard instantly and the press telling our stories over and over and over again even long after…