We mustn’t upset the delicate balance!

However, with the easier production capabilities and mass reach available today, I doubt those same arguments hold up as well. Is it really about fandom or just reaching a specific niche of buyer — it’s harder to tell. Certainly, the larger platform for reaching potential buyers means the opportunity for greater profitability (though such is by no means guaranteed), but that also appears to mean that more individuals feel emboldened to sell items that infringe upon the IP of others.

There seems to be a prevailing attitude of ‘they’re big companies or big brands, and they can handle it’, but I ask everyone to turn that about and ask how they feel when the IP being taken is that of an independent artist or seller. We (the royal we) hear stories about the big companies stealing independent designs and we rail against them for doing so, but many apparently find nothing wrong in doing the reverse. To me at least, this seems to weaken the overall argument that works to protect the independent artist.

Certainly there is room for an area of fan-made item – parody and certain derivative works being chief among them, but when we actively promote items that are simply the theft of IP, I don’t think we do any of us any favors. So going back to your conclusion, I too hope that a shift comes that allows for better IP licensing models, but I want it to exist so that all artists can leverage it, and not have it weakened by a double standard.

Fannish grey-market products are as old as fandom itself. Fans would regularly get t-shirts printed that offer a wry spin to their favorite show and hawk them at local cons. Bjo Trimble proudly wore her “Property of Klingon Rollerball Team” T-shirt in her book “On the good ship Enterprise”.
The internet has only made them more well-known, and technology has made their creation simpler. T-shirts can be printed one at a time now, removing the need to outlay the cash. Zines, once printed on a hand-fed mimeo at a print run of a couple dozen, or snuck onto the office copy machine, are just published online and made available to the entire earth instantly. Even these items are awesome, in that they’re 3-D printed; these would have to have been molded and cast just a couple years ago. It’s like making cookies with the future itself.
The purpose is the same – you love your favorite show or movie, and want to share that love with a bit of wit. And if you make enough money off of it to buy lunch that day, hooray.
The companies who own these products usually maintain a “don’t ask don’t tell” relationship with the fannish material – as long as they’re not made in massive quantities, and don’t make enough money that it’s worth going after, they’re largely ignored. It’s seen as good publicity for the larger product. and coming down on the fans is usually seen as bad form.
A well-placed piece like this can make a cute idea a screaming hit, at least as long as when the next Something shiny comes along. But we are seeing some of these grey-market products becoming quite profitable, thanks to the exposure of the Internet. So we may well see the BBC, or lucasflm, or DC, or whomever be forced to come up with some sort of process to allow these bits of creative awesome to get done, while still protecting the IP, and letting the owning company wet their beak.
Odds are the current process of licensing is sufficiently complicated and expensive as to make it difficult for most fan companies to get in on. We may see some new financial arrangement appear – something based more on a taste of each sale, or a small flat fee, and an agreement not to fly too far astern of the tone of the property.
The world is changing – Hopefully the lawyers and the pencil-pushers will allow that change to benefit everyone.