Fan fiction? Or originality?

I just read a very interesting article about fan fictions. I've never read one myself, but it sounds like an interesting idea. I mean, I love writing and all. Well... when I feel like it at least. And the idea of writing about the characters you love of your favorite books seems like a dream to me, but at the same time, it seems like a sin, a sin against the author which would be God in this scenario.

It's contradicting... But it is a whole new strategy that Amazon has come up with to make profit. I mean fans are actually gonna be paid to write about other peoples characters... Of course, with all the legal proceedings, the authors that allow it will have in no time fans writing stories about their characters and their lives.

I think it is amazing to read someone else's point of view at how things end in certain books, or at least, how they think things should end. Or maybe reading about a whole new version of the characters themselves. It is this big fan revolution, where their imagination also is taken into account.

My "but" here is that those books are created by a person and just because we fall in love with that world doesn't mean it gives us the right to rule in it. It belongs body and soul to the author. I know and understand that when a person publishes his work, that means their characters come to life through other people's eyes. But that doesn't mean we can  really change it, or can we?

There are many books that are based on others' stories, and we all get inspired by other authors' characters and stories, that is completely normal. So isn't that the same? Or do we forgive and forget because this new author's point of view is as interesting as the original author's?

It is a bit confusing to be honest. I think people should be original... However, we can still feel inspired by other books, but we should respect as much as possible their ideas, even if we use them as guidelines for our own. It is normal to need a guide at a beginning, but at some point, every author has their own identity and their own feel to the text and the words... So maybe the focus should shift from the characters and the story of other authors to the question of "who am I as a writing?" and "what do I want to accomplish with writing this?"

Here the link to the article.

http://www.examiner.com/article/amazon-and-fan-fiction-copy-cats-or-revolutionary