Actually Oleg it has its release date for next week at a major film show in London, which would usually mean they have something to show for it
I don't think Sci-Fi London is a particularly major event, but even the big international film festivals have very low-budget and low-key screenings, it's not really a big thing.
Bones, there aren't usually any copyright issues for fan films or fan fiction as they are usually non profit, and even so a small statement at the bottom saying you didn't devise the entire lot yourself is sufficient lol
Profit has absolutely nothing to do with copyright. It may have a bearing on whether anyone chooses to pursue the case against you, but a breach of copyright is a breach of copyright no matter what. A disclaimer doesn't help in any way whatsoever, except possibly to show good will towards those whose copyright you are breaching.
Unfortunately there are lots of these stupid myths about what you are allowed to do and not do, which people with no understanding of intellectual property law perpetuate, like you have here.
There's a guy who lives near me who used to make Doctor Who fan films, at the time when there was no Doctor Who on TV. No-one cared until the BBC decided to relaunch the series, and at that point they told him to stop doing it or they'd take legal action. That's fairly typical - what it comes down to is not whether copyright is being breached, but whether anyone cares enough to do anything about it.
And low budget doesn't always mean crap, there was an Indiana Jones one made once that even had Spielberg writing to the makers of it congratulating them
http://www.fanfilms.net/
Absolutely, there have been some amazing films made with very low budgets. One that springs to mind is 'Clerks', one of my favourite films ever which was made with almost no money at all. 'The Blair Witch Project' was famously made for only a couple of thousand dollars or something. Generally the good ones are the ones that make a virtue of their small-scale nature. The ones that try to be ambitious with amazing special effects and so on, usually turn out shit.
Unfortunately most of the people who make these things (particularly in film school) generally go the second route.