A sad day indeed for all fans of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series - the fifth and final book, “Midnight Sun” has been placed on an indefinite hold. The reason? Someone who had been entrusted with a working copy of the manuscript for the book apparently leaked it onto the internet. While Stephenie states in this article found on Yahoo! that she doesn’t believe the original distribution of the manuscripts was done with malicious intent, she is too sad that someone leaked it to the internet to continue working on “Midnight Sun.”

This comes as an unfortunate turn of events for any fan of the series as now the end will take longer to arrive - if it ever does. Stephenie stated that she hopes this will leave fans a better understanding of copyright and how important it is for an author/musician/filmmaker to have artistic control of their project.

While it saddens me as well as I was planning to begin the series, I have to wonder - in this day and age of internet leaks of songs, books, and movies, why are working copies of manuscripts, films, and music being given to anyone? Inevitably, they end up on the internet and someone gets sued, someone gets arrested, or, in the case of Stephenie Meyer, someone stops working on the project that was leaked. I understand her point, but punishing the fans, who honestly had nothing to do with this (ie, look at the people who were given a working copy of the manuscript to find out how it got out on the internet) really isn’t the way to go. Yes, I understand that the fans that found that manuscript on the internet probably did download or read it, but honestly, having had a writer for a roommate, a working copy of a book is often a far cry from the finished product and frankly it’s human nature to be curious and want to know what happens next right now instead of later.

If I were Miss Meyer, I’d continue working on the book, but start looking at a new direction to take it from where it went in the copy that was leaked. At least then she’s not punishing fans such as myself, who never did anything wrong, and she can say that she beat those people who almost caused her book to not be released. Like I said, I understand her position, but at the same time, she needs to see things from the fans who never saw the leaked book, who never even knew it existed until a news story on Yahoo, MSN, or wherever they saw it, let them know anything had happened.