I write a book about the suffering of a particular minority. The book sells internationally and earns awards. My name becomes recognised globally.
Someone buys many copies of the book, modifies them to say the opposite of my intended point, making me look like, say, a racist, and distributes it.
Now is it stupid?
My point is your name being attached to a particular piece of work means you're name is directly associated with that work and what it represents. Any changes to the work could alter the perception that others have of you, towards the negative, and you've done nothing wrong.
We've recently seen what happens in a post-truth society when someone says something (usually online) that's not true about another person and the negativity generated towards that person happens before the truth is revealed (and promptly ignored anyway.)
Do we really need more of that?
Authors have "moral rights of integrity" over their work, which means you can't modify a work without permission of the author, even if you own it.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/Moral_right_of_int...