I just felt the need to report that my confused brain keeps reading this headline as "Loads more US coleslaw"... And then keeps wondering why anyone would want it online...

If I may jump in...

The main point in intellectual "property", at least as I see it, is that, unlike physical property, it is not a zero-sum game. If people were to take stuff from my appartment, I'd be left without it. But when people "take" my words, I still have them, too. So it's not about scarcity any more. However -- and that is a point that Cory's article points out really well -- most content producers (or, more often, content distributors) often try to treat intellectual property market as if it were a scarcity market. And if it isn't, they try to make it into one: that's really the purpose of most DRM systems.

As for your questions, Cupcake, consider Shakespeare. Most of his plays were based on already existing stories. So he, too, really used "somebody else's ideas". Does that make him any less a genius?

#58: I could counter your claim, but I won't. Any licitation with numbers of the dead is pointless. It's the kind of false reasoning that can only create more vicious circles.

And you are again putting the blame solely on outside factors. I'm not saying they're blameless. But saying "the USA embassy was attacked because Americans are hypocrits" is simplistic, and it does not exonerate Serbian officials who brought the mob to Belgrade and then held inflammatory speeches until they got the desired result -- a bunch of people ready to smash something - anything - just to get rid of the tension.

As for the exact number of protesters, "a few thousand" is pretty close to "two or three thousand". I don't know what CNN and Fox reported, but even official Serbian sources claim almost 200 people arrested, and 130 people injured. So your calculations of a few hundred are definitely not correct.

As for the fact that a number of people used the opportunity to steal things, that is a different matter, and one where, I suspect, we actually agree. It's sad to see young people who have accepted the "hate the West" spiel on one side, yet fell for the consumerism trap on the other. But, again, it's not only the West's fault. It's also the fault of everyone who encouraged hate, in any form. Accepting that may help change some things in Serbia.

Mindy: As I said earlier, Albanians are not all Muslims. The conflict in Kosovo is not about faith, but rather about ethnicity. And yes, they did not get along. Ottoman rule merely simplified the situation, by subordinating both groups -- the Albanians and the Slavs.

At #34: Yes, there are long lists of killed or missing -- but they are on both sides. I'm not excusing the slow and extremely bundling way in which the whole Balkans mess has been handled by the West. But blaming the whole situation on outside factors, when inflammatory speeches were held before deliberately created mobs is simply not tenable.

And there were more than one hundred teenagers out on the streets. I know this not from TV, but from friends and relatives who looked out their windows and counted.

#10: "If Serbs and Albanians, Christians and Muslims can't get along, how did they do it for so very long, I'd like to know?"

They didn't. That's part of the reason for the situation now. Kosovo has been full of conflict for very, very long. And the division between Serbs and Albanians isn't a question of faith.

#14: I don't know what anyone's going to do, but, for example, Belgium is currently undergoing totally serious discussion on the possible dissolution of the union. If they decide they'd rather part, why should they not have the right to do so?

Being a female who lives surrounded by dogs, cats and small children, I have to say, toys are nice, but... self-healing tights. Now that's perfect.

@ 18, Dan: Thanks. That makes sense.

#5:" But no one seems to have noticed that Brust chose a BY-NC-ND license, which prohibits derivative works! Now that just don't seem right."

Is it possible that the ND portion of the licence is connected with the fact that it's unauthorised? Could SKZB be trying to prevent other people from getting into trouble over usage of copyrighted (presumably) characters etc?

OK, this is just something that no one's thought to mention so far, and I find it, at the very least, interesting: Kosovo Albanians living in Croatia -- and there is a fair number of them -- decided to celebrate Kosovo's independence in a somewhat peculiar manner. Since there are so many of them who own bakeries and goldsmith shops, Albanian bakers today gave all their goods away for free, while goldsmiths offered 15% discount on all wares.

The bread-for-free action goes on until midnight, local time. A lot of people were surprised, and some even went back to their local bakers bringing gifts in return: wine and other stuff to help the celebration along. Make of that what you will, but I think it's cute.

@33, Gandalf81: I don't think anyone here has said you have no right to feel angry or sad because of what's happened with Kosovo. And I can certainly understand that the government in Serbia is not ready to just laugh, shrug, and wave Kosovo bye-bye. As long as the reactions remain on a diplomatic level. I can see -- and appreciate -- that you feel that breaking windows is simple vandalism. Which it is.

However, Kosovo's independence is not something that happened overnight, and it's not something that only one side is responsible for. By now, actually, it's not something that only two sides are responsible for, either. It's all much more complex than that.

Everything's always much more complex than any "that" -- and doubly so in the Balkans.

I'm sorry for everyone in Serbia who feels the loss of Kosovo as their personal loss. But I also understand everyone in Kosovo who rejoices in their newly declared independence. And I also understand my mother in law, who also lives in Belgrade, and who says, "I don't understand what the fuss is all about -- it's not as if it's frigging California."

There are a lot of people in Serbia who just want to get on with their lives, regardless of what they may feel about Kosovo. And that's what I suspect Serbia as a country will simply have to do, the international climate being what it is.

But nothing in your posts actually means that anything written by Jasmina Tešanović isn't true; there has been very strong, myth-relying language in use, thanks mostly to those who are trying to capitalise on the situation, and it is scary and boring at the same time (living in the Balkans is a very strange experience) to hear that same vocabulary being dragged out for the umpteenth time.

I for one believe that Serbian people are, in principle, much more intelligent than their leaders sometimes make them out to be (or hope they are). And the same goes for any people on Earth. But that's a different topic all together...

@18: Like most Balkan stories, this one began a long, long time ago but not, unfortunately, in a galaxy far, far away...

What we call "Albanians" today are in fact the descendants of the indigenous population of the whole region, Illyrians. Slav tribes came in the 6th century and took a large part of the region, including what will become Kosovo, although a portion of the indigenous population remained there.

Kosovo was created as an administrative unit during the Ottoman rule of the area. It was taken from the Turks by Austrians in the 17th c. with help from Albanians, but it also served as refuge for Serbs escaping Ottomans, which is why it's been torn between Serbia and Albania ever since. (This is a very short version, there was more changing of hands, but you get the idea, I hope.)

A portion of Kosovo officially became part of Serbia in the 19th century, for political reasons, as it was a good way for the West to put it outside of reach of the by then dwindling Ottoman Empire, and then in the Balkan Wars, Serbia conquered another part of it, while another part was taken by Montenegro. However, the majority of the population was -- and remains -- ethnically Albanian. However, they do not see themselves as Albanian citizens in search of a nation, although they share the language and the ethnicity with them. They see themselves mostly as Kosovari, who just happen to be Albanians. And, to make things more interesting, although most are Muslim, due to the long Ottoman rule, there is also a sizeable portion of them who are Christian.

As for the nationalist view that Serbs seem to take, it's due to the 14th century battle, which was one of the defining points of Serbian nation. It took place right in the middle of Kosovo, and, although Serbs lost it, it remained a cultural turning-point for them since it was the first time they stood up to the Ottomans in an organised manner.

Sorry for the long-winded response.

It's true that Kosovo is a sort of a national myth in Serbia, but it's also true that a lot of the people there have outgrown national myths.I also find it encouraging that on many Serbian forums, right now, many people are expressing their wish to just see the end of the whole story. They also perceive the official Serbian reaction to be all noise with no substance, similar to the reaction when Montenegro voted its independence. So this may be a reason to hope that the situation will not become any more heated than it is.

And yes, it's very easy to perceive the disintegration of Balkan states as a part of some sort of master-plan for the destruction of Europe. But that view doesn't take into account the fact that ethnic relations there have very long and convoluted histories, most often closely connected with economy. (Kosovo isn't rich in oil, but it has a lot of coal and metals.)

The promise of international recognition probably did a lot to encourage Kosovo to re-declare its independence, but it is a re-declaration: the first time Kosovo proclaimed its independence from Serbia was in 1991, confirmed by a referendum a year later -- not to mention that conflicts in Kosovo began in the 80's, and had their roots in problems that went unsolved since WWI. Kosovo is not an invented state with an arbitrary name.