Apparently, that crack we made about Blizzard's mighty cease-and-desist hammer in yesterday's post about the World of StarCraft mod project (which uses StarCraft 2 tools to attempt to create a standalone MMO) was a tad prophetic. Though the developer hasn't actually slapped the team with the dreaded C&D (yet), it did petition YouTube to have the mod's demo videos removed, citing a copyright violation.

It's unclear what further action Blizzard will take, but it would be irresponsible to assume that its actions are indicative of the existence of a real World of StarCraft game. It's entirely possible that the company simply wants to protect its "StarCraft" name, or reserve the title for possible future use -- though it would be a shame if their squatting ended up shutting down these modders' impressive efforts. Especially after they asked so nicely for permission.