Hmm. An interesting development. Given the nature of my projects, I am often concerned about Lucasfilms perspective on such fan made films. To my knowledge they are happy for people to create their own films using copyrighted characters, but I think projects like mine, magnoliafan's, ADM's and yours (etc etc) have probably slipped through the net - until now.

Back in Aug 06 Lucas online published the following with regards to fan made spoofs and parodies:

"Lucasfilm has been informed that YouTube recently removed from its site several fan-made Star Wars spoofs and parodies. We would like the fan film community to know that this was not done at our request.

Apparently the action was taken by YouTube as a result of a misunderstanding of a request to remove an item containing material taken from starwars.com without our permission. We have asked YouTube to restore any works that they inadvertently removed."

Perhaps this latest development is the start of a crack down. Who knows. If I get a C&D notice from LFL I will absolutely and immediately stop what I am doing. I have total respect for their copyrights and for my personal position and finances for that matter.

Lucasfilm must be aware of our community and until now they have turned a blind eye. If we did contact them directly to clarify our positioin it would force them to quote the company line. Perhaps it's best to continue until we get a specific warning about our projects.

This old link makes for interesting reading.