An author admitted in court Tuesday to exaggerating his claims that the best-selling "The Da Vinci Code" borrows from his own work.

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of the 1982 nonfiction book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail," are suing Random House, publisher of Dan Brown's book.

They claimed that parts of their work formed the basis of Brown's 2003 novel, which has sold more than 40 million copies and has been made into a forthcoming film starring Tom Hanks. They claim that the book didn't just borrow a theory, it stole the whole thrilling jigsaw puzzle they created, CBS News correspondent Richard Roth reports.

Not surprisingly, Brown's publisher calls this nonsense.

"The publishers of the Da Vinci Code are saying, look, all we have done
is take the basic facts in the original work, the premise about Jesus
and Mary Magdalene, and turn it into a novel," said Paul Herbert, a media lawyer. "There is no copyright in the facts that we based it on, so where's the claim?"