Suited

Normally, I hate the overly and greedily litigious nature of our society....but I just heard of two suits about which I have very mixed emotions.

First, the Dan Brown/Da Vinci Code/Holy Blood Holy Grail suit. On the one hand, while it's clear that Dan Brown lifted "the central architecture" of Holy Blood, I don't see how an idea can be copyrighted. Brown clearly didn't copy from Holy Blood, he simply and without originality, vampire-like, sucked the blood from it.

On the other hand, I utterly hated "The Da Vinci Code"....not because the central conceit of the book offended me in any way (although I did (and do) find it silly in the extreme), but because it was horribly written. So, when a horribly written book resides on the best seller list for years, I have to applaud suing the guy. Just 'cause it makes me feel good.

I also see that CBS is suing Howard Stern because he flogged his move to Sirius for over a year while still broadcasting on CBS. On the one hand, I utterly hate Stern.....not because his obscenity offends me (although I could gladly do without it), but because he is a mean-spirited sneering bully who allows -- nay, encourages! -- his entourage and followers to be equally snide and superior and blatently (and frequently racistly) cruel. So yeah, sue the bully.

On the other hand, it was CBS that gladly broadcast (and profited handsomely from) his vitriol and cruelty for years....so I guess I'm rooting for the suit to last a long time and cost both plaintiff and defendant a lot of time and bad P/R and money before it gets tossed out of court.