The question was never wether fan-edits were legal. They are not. So any way of distributing fan-edits, no matter if paid or for free, is technically a copyright infringement.
Technicality–making a fan edit is legal, distributing it without a license from the copyright holder is not. Thus, the stipulation at OT.com that you own the fan-edit’s primary source material also kinda-sorta means that if we were all Harmys, we would all be able to simply make our own Despecialized Editions, and they would all look alike because we’re all converging on the same reference point. So there’s no way to prove which is the original and which is the copy, or if they’re all originals and just coincidentally identical. The Spartacus defense 😉
The community came up with a way to at least morally justify what they are doing.
That’s very true. The above point is just helpfully muddies the waters around simply having the fan-edit versus the act of distributing it. But of course making a fan edit involves breaking DRM, so you have to have been at least during this time in a country where that was legal for this purpose, in order to be truly in the clear as a fan-edit creator.