I agree, the question if something is a laser is actually quite complex and a lot of things that were claimed to be lasers turned out to only be amplified emiss

I agree, the question if something is a laser is actually quite complex and a lot of things that were claimed to be lasers turned out to only be amplified emission. Nature photonics made a checklist for this very reason (note I did not read the actual article so they might have ticked of that list) https://www.nature.com/articles/nphoton.2017.28 https://www.nature.com/articles/nphoton.2017.28