Time to create a bunch of Ghostcatchers mods, huh?

From what I understand is that Mezel Mods was already making mods, it ruffled Stern's feathers, and rather than shutting down the Mezels, Stern offered a partnership instead. I imagine that if you have a mod that you'd like to sell that you could work with the Mezels to get it in their store, however.

The mod community used to be pretty much the wild west. At some point license holders saw lost revenue opportunities and gray area IP infringement stuff going on and they decided to lock things down.

markmon is right about the C&D procedure. If Stern sends an email or PM, it doesn't mean a thing. Now, you can respect their wishes out of professional courtesy, but until you get an actual legal notice, typically from the license holder itself, you can ignore it and keep moving along. Doing that won't win you any future favors with Stern, but it's up to you how you want to manage relationships in this hobby.

I've heard Stern mention that "official" mods don't negate warranties, so there must be some fine print somewhere that lists unofficial mods as a way to invalidate a warranty.