I was reading up on the Legacy 4K Scan and I’m wondering why Lucasfilm is so afraid of it. They let Despecialized and Silver Screen have free reign. Hundreds of copies sold on ebay. But Verta was told point blank if it gets out, they will go after him.
Mike is doing everything above board–this was an intentional strategic choice of his from the beginning, and it has aggravated a lot of people here (“The best Star Wars preservation you’ll never, ever see!”). He would not be able to get the (unspecified) help from industry professionals if he could not assure them that his preservation will be 100% within the law. As such, he’ll “release” it when the copyright holder permits him to do it, or when the copyright expires. And not a moment sooner. The “threats” are in many ways redundant – the project is built on trust, and Mike would piss off a lot of litigious people by changing his plans now, not just Disney.
Harmy operates on the “no profit, no foul, buy the Blu-rays” principle, which has so far worked. But it’s not as legally sound as Mike’s project. And Silver Screen? Jeeze, -1 has changed his name at least twice and pretended to move to Ecuador (okay, I made that last one up). He’s clearly worried. I’d say needlessly, but nevertheless, he has engaged in an incredibly long and ineffective campaign of covering his tracks.
Disney’s light touch in this respect probably has more to do with the Streisand Effect and pissing off their customers than legal opinion. They aren’t any more hard-ass on Mike than anyone else–they just have a door they can knock on in his case. In fact, he knocked on theirs.