Jane Austen spin offs

I have mixed feelings about spin offs.
I could not wade through the history of copyright laws to understand why this is legal, but it must be so.
Is it not theft?  Jane Austen put her heart into creating wonderful characters and then other authors take them to reconstruct a story!
But........

   Who can resist P.D. James writing about the characters in "Pride and Prejudice"?
   And, of course, she added her special touch- murder.  I am not a fan of mystery books-especially involving murder.  But, P.D. James is such a good writer and this book really drew me in.
   There is a murder in the woods on the estate of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth (Bennet).  And...George Wickham is involved.  I was impressed with the language, setting and plot development of the first half of the book.   Towards the end, there seemed to be long descriptions of circumstances leading up to the murder.  Perhaps this is necessary in all murder mystery novels.  The author was 91 when this book was published!  I enjoyed it.

   I had enjoyed reading Jane Austen's "Emma", so I was curious about "Perfect Happiness" by Rachel Billington. 
  It is a sequel to "Emma", beginning a year after Emma's marriage to Mr. George Knightley.  Emma's friends have married and some of them have babies. 
  I really loved this book!  So much fun to once again read about Emma's social circle.  And this author was able to keep the same sense of time and place.  It was awesome!



And so...to the question of spin offs.
There certainly is an appetite for them.
I found a website with 87 novels that have been inspired by Jane Austen.  Some of them are a stretch.."Bridget Jones' Diary". Also the movie "You've got Mail".
The most recent ones sound like a BIG stretch..........

  
This is the first book in the series "Jane Austen Takes the South" by a very prolific southern author using a pen name.
  Following "Pride and Prejudice and Cheese Grits" is "Emma Knightley and Chili-Slaw Dogs", and "Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread".  Interested?

 Some people believe that you shouldn't mess with the classics.

And so, the question:  "What would Jane Austen say?"

Possibly she would be delighted that her characters have survived 200 years and are still strong, and are still inspiring writers.