Jimbo, Chatlab, I'm not complaining here, I'm just laying down the legal facts of the matter. I'm not trying to make any value judgements about whether or not GL should release the original trilogy. The fact of the matter is, calling his current product "The Star Wars Trilogy" is misleading to the consumer public, because what he is selling is not the Star Wars Trilogy as it exists as a legal entity. What George is selling is an update of the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition that he released in '97. If no effort is made to draw the consumers attention to that fact, then they are engaging in fraudulent misrepresentation of their product, regardless of GL's personal feelings of the matter.
Something to Consider, George Lucas has been pushing to replace the Director credits on Empire and Jedi because of the special editions and his revisions of them. That, in and of itself, clearly shows that these films are new entities, distinct from the original even in GL's mind. While GL refers to the original's as "Work prints" the Legal System will treat it differently. The films were released to the general public, and were available to them for 20 years before Lucas began "revising" his work. That, in the eyes of the law, makes them a finished product, as opposed to a work in progress. If GL were to successfully challenge that status, and have the Special Editions legally declared The Star Wars Trilogy, then he would be obliged at that point to return his oscar, and any other awards his "work print" had received, as they would no longer be valid. However, those are some really big ifs.
The Facts are, GL can not change history. That being the case, any attempt to call these new editions "The Star Wars Trilogy" without any manner of qualification as to what is actually contained in these prints, is fraudulent misrepresentation and is technically legally actionable. The question is, would it be worth the time, money and effort to persue it. Probably not.