It really ought to be illegal to rewrite a book and portray it as the original authors work.

If you want to make your version ... assuming copyright allows ... sure ... just don't pretend it is the work of the original author.

Imagine if people did this to laws: "we re-wrote it to suit our prejudices, but since we published it as if it was the original work ... thats all ok ... right?"

Agree, although it gets tricky with translations.

For childrens litterature there is a tradition of re-tellings of classics. But this seem to present as the original, which is problematic.

Some jurisdictions have the concept of moral rigts, which mean you cannot alter an original work even if you own the copyright or it is public domain.

> It really ought to be illegal to rewrite a book and portray it as the original authors work.

They're already doing it with TV shows. Look at the Witcher TV series for instance - which has strayed quite far from the source material.

Even the author (Andrzej Sapkowski) has denounced his relationship to it, yet they're claiming it somehow to still have his blessing, and still be be 'The Witcher'.

Stories have always changed with the times. I studied medieval lit at university, so a salient example comes to mind immediately: Perceval, by Chretien. He died with it unfinished, but it nonetheless circulated, and there are no fewer than four "continuations," each quite clearly tied to the original; and further still, Wolfram von Eschenbach based his own Parzival (probably the greatest work of medieval German literature) on Chretien's work.

The only difference in modern times is that we're often leaving the original author's name attached, which is, admittedly, rather insidious.

This!