yes, they encourage us to create our own lore and chapters and dinasties - to play with, on the tabletop. that's entirely different from fan animations where the creators make money using their IP. I'm quite new to 40K so maybe they did encourage you all to do animations in the past, I don't know. but it doesn't mean it's going to last forever.

how much the fan animators make is irrelevant. GW is not a charity, but a business and as such, they want to maximise their profits. like all other businesses, for example Reddit itself. different business model, but it was created to raise revenue. if it didn't, it would be shut down.

now I'm not saying GW aren't shooting themselves in the leg by taking away the source many of their players used to get acquainted with their IP in the first place, they totally do. but it's naive to think that any business is happy letting fans exploit their IP in a way that the company doesn't see at least some commission from it. ideally they should find a middle ground, which is exactly what they did with the animators they hired a few months ago. but I presume it's not applicable to all animators, and they need to draw the line somewhere.