The Da Vinci Code is in the middle is a copyright battle brought on by a historian claiming that Brown stole his theories to create the plot of the novel. This article from Slate has an interesting and cheeky take on the whole fiasco:
Can one writer freely borrow someone else’s wacky historical speculations? Say a historian publishes the idea that Lyndon Johnson is a space alien who killed John F. Kennedy. Are you free to make a movie about it? The right answer, as perhaps Oliver Stone would testify, is that the nature of the claim matters.
Part of me wonders if Brown will ever be out of the news.
–Jane, read it, found it amusing