Twilight Zone:...And After the Breaking Dawn There Was a Russett Noon?

After the twilight, a new moon is obscured by an eclipse. Then a breaking dawn threatens to end it all. But, after the sun leaves the dawn behind to rise to its zenith, a russet noon begins with a new adventure...

So fanfic writer LadySybilla wrote her own book, Russet Noon, which continues the Twilight saga from Jacob's point of view. She went out and got herself an ISBN and started pre-selling the novel, complete with "accidentally" stolen cover art (see image, copyright Charli Sieger, 2004, on left) on the Internet back in early March for the low, low price of $9.99.

But oops! Seems nobody explained the finer points of copyright law to LadySybilla. She was under the impression that it was perfectly permissable to take Stephenie Meyer's characters, put them in her own book, and make money buckets of money. Once it was brought to her attention that that's now how it works, she seems to have consulted with some lawyers who basically said "Um, duh!" and she pulled the book and now plans to release it for free on the Internet, one chapter at a time, beginning in September.

I don't even know what to say about this other than:

1. How did I totally miss this until Leila over at Bookshelves of Doom brought it to my attention?

2. Did LadySybilla really not think there was anything wrong with this?

3. Does LadySybilla really think that Stephenie Meyer would be ok with this and that "she laughs at the whole situation," as she stated in this interview?

4. Is anyone else so intrigued by this controversy that they're actually looking for to September and the chance to read the first chapter

For more on the Russet Noon controversy, check out:

...the "Official" website, which sadly, has mostly been taken down due to that pesky copyright thing.

...the history of the controversy as extensively chronicled and footnoted on fanhistory.com (and where I did much of my research for this post).