Most people think that the law regarding online behaviour is vague and still developing because the internet is relatively new, but this is wrong.

Internet law deals with exactly the same legal issues as normal law, it's just applied to the different features of the online world.

Whenever you purchase, write or download anything on the internet, you are subject to exactly the same consumer, defamation and copyright laws as in the non-virtual world.

Who owns stuff online?

One of the most common misconceptions about the internet is that all material on it is freely available to the public.

Just like the real world, every image, sentence, and audio or video clip belongs to someone, and if you use it without permission you are breaking the law.

The high profile cases in the media are usually about pirated online music or videos but that doesn't mean that you can freely copy text and pictures.

If you started distributing the latest Harry Potter novel online you're just as likely to get in trouble as if you put the Harry Potter soundtrack online.

It's still practically unheard of for the end users of pirated material online to be prosecuted. Most media companies are targeting file-sharing companies like Morpheus and iMesh.

But as the technology to embed copyright information in text and pictures as well as video and music becomes more advanced, this could change.