This week, the estates of A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard announced that, after “a good many years” of searching, they have finally found someone to write an authorized sequel to Milne’s Winnie-the Pooh stories, more than ninety years after the last Pooh story was published. They say that, although Disney has be making film versions, cartoons, and storybooks for some time, there has yet to be an authorized sequel to the much-loved children’s stories.

This begs the question: what’s the difference between an authorized sequel and one of a pile of Disney picture books featuring the same characters?

Speculation on what the sequel might be like would be pointless; better to wait until October, when David Benedictus’ Return to the Hundred-Acre Wood will be published (by Egmont in the U.K. and Dutton in the U.S.) But the fact that it is felt necessary to make it official (as if the other manifestations of the Pooh stories were somehow inauthentic pirate copies, despite the fact that Disney acquired certain rights to use the stories and characters back in 1961) speaks to a culture of fandom that stretches beyond the capitalist impulses of the publishing industry. Cultural artefacts have far more inchoate boundaries now than ever before, thanks to fan fiction, merchandising, adaptations into media other than the ones in which they originally appeared (and the list goes on, of course). In this world, the authority of the “authorized” sequel carries weight; the Milne and Shepard estates have been quick to reassure fans that it will capture “the spirit and quality” of Milne’s books, because after all, producing more of something that’s already popular is never a bad idea from a sales point of view—even if the original writer has been dead since 1956. But you don’t need the authentic author to produce an authorized book.

I loved the Pooh stories as a child (still do). The final story—where Christopher Robin is about to depart for school, effectively leaving part of his childhood behind him—is incredibly moving (and, for me, became more poignant as I grew older, for obvious reasons). But it’s also… well, it’s an ending. Something is over, and, although Milne captures the timeless essence of the stories by emphasising that somewhere in the Hundred-Acre Wood “a boy and his bear will always be playing”—well, the nature of the ending suggests a degree of—dare I say it?—closure. It is a good ending. These are difficult to achieve. It’ll be interesting to see how, under the circumstances, Benedictus rises to the challenge of following it.

When you have any kind of presence on the internet, you have to be prepared for anything. During this lovely week before Christmas, I had the "pleasure" of dealing with a troll. And not the good, plot bunny kind.

About a month ago, I was a very small part in a take down of a website. This website had put up in their entirety hundreds of books from major authors across the board - genre fiction, mainstream fiction, and non-fiction. I was told about the site by a very computer savvy person I know who found some of the genre fiction authors we know on the site. One of these authors had her entire body of work posted on this site.

In the short upheaval that occurred after this site was found, it was taken down. The computer guy turned the site in for blowing user agreements. Because the guy had put up everything, including Star Wars media tie-in novels, production companies (LucasFilms), major publishers (Baen),  and SFWA got involved - that I know of - in Cease and Desist. I did my part in the way I knew how. I talked. I blogged. I passed the word.

I got the troll. The guy who "owned" the site sent out apologies as the Wrath of Lucas, et al. descended. I even got one. Now, a month later I get an email from a rather disturbed individual from a Yahoo! Account with a "name" that I sure hope is fake (or "her" parents have a lot to answer for).  I was told I needed to check my facts before being mean to the owner of the site (as if I had anything to do with the actual take down). That he - owner - had bought those books on a CD and put them on his site to promote reading, and as a writer I should also be promoting reading. And that he was not infringing on anyone's copyright because he was offering them for free - not making a profit off of them.

Besides the fact that I have seriously cleaned up the grammar, punctuation, and spelling of the rant, "she" shows a remarkable lack of knowledge in copyright issues.  I don't consider myself an expert in the matter myself, but I know some things, and when I passed my troll's email on to others, I've learned this "woman" is sorely deluded and misinformed. "She" is the malicious one. Her friend, the site owner? I truly believe he was clueless.

1. Not one single author or publisher gave this person permission to post their work on his site. Not one single author even knew about the site until someone else pointed it out. Whether or not a person is making a profit off the postings is irrelevant. The author still owns the words. They grant permission to the use of the words.
2. Just because he bought a CD with the books on them, doesn't give him or anyone the right to post the books for distribution. In fact, he should've turned the seller of the CD in. As the books/authors are across the board it's obvious that the CD was pirated and not anything official from a single publisher.
3. These sites are not libraries. Libraries buy physical copies from the publishers then lend them individually to people. Library sales show up on the publishers accounting lists.
4. "Promotion" of this sort is ridiculous. This is like saying Grand Theft Auto (the felony not the game) is a Promotional Tool for the automakers -- if someone cares enough to steal the car, it must be a good car, right? And promotion should be an agreement between author and promoter. This website didn't ask anyone.

I did make the mistake of responding to the troll. But one of the authors from the site wrote a beautiful response carefully explaining copyright to this deluded soul. I admit to taking a pot shot or two at the person's lack of grammar, spelling, and knowledge. Of course, I expected a response. I wasn't wrong. The very brilliant troll asked what I was doing to take doing Used Bookstores.

Um, nothing. Used bookstores have a very valuable place in lifecycles of books. Used bookstores not only give people with little money the ability to inexpensively discover new authors (libraries are the FREE choice, but don't always have the selection of a good used bookstore). They also take overstock from the big bookstores, keeping those books from being stripped or returned, making the publishers and authors happy. AND, the author has been paid at some point for the original sale of the book.

And, to boil it down to it's most simplistic form - from a fan friend - used bookstores do NOT sell Xeroxed copies of books.

What's the bottom line? This is the face of piracy. People thinking they're providing a "Service" to authors by stealing their work, posting it for free, and say they're doing the author a "favor" by "promoting" their work.  Yeah, don't do me that favor, would ya? Thanks.