Star Trek Copyright Settlement Allows Fan Film to Proceed
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I would be very interested in finding out how they intend to define "professional-quality". Particularly these days.
Would you not quickly end up needing to "sabotage" your output in order to skirt the rules of such a definition, in what amounts to a strange new dogma format?
They tried to: http://www.startrek.com/fan-films
So can you ever ship two Star Trek fan productions? Or does the first production render you sufficiently experienced to no longer qualify as an amateur? ;)
The need to send a clear message about their strategy and relationship with fan fiction going forward makes sense, but surely there's a useful compromise to be found which would also increase the value of their IP?