I'll get back on topic, swear, but let me just say that every fanediting comes with the understanding that you must own a legal copy of the movie before downloading the fanedit. It becomes piracy if you did not pay for the legal copy of the movie. If you have a copy of Star Wars, it's just a back up. There's very little the feds can do with that. I've also never heard of anyone getting in trouble over a fanedit.

Back on topic, I've always liked that Lucas lets others play with the universe. The Clone Wars has gone from a crappy movie to a fantastic TV series, with some of the best Star Wars EU stories in existance. A lot of that comes from direct input from Lucas, but clearly the show belongs to Dave Filoni. Filoni brings a great style to the show without losing the "Star Wars" vibe. Lucas doesn't have to let him get dark on the show, or kill characters. And I gotta respect that.