intellectual property in the electronic world

I believe intellectual property rights affect the electronic world the most, and by electronic world, i am of course referring to the internet. I personally get most, if not all of my resources for projects and papers from the internet... even the readings for this class are from the internet. Every time one reads an article or views a picture or even an entire website, they most likely know that those things were created by someone else, and then posted on the web. But what is stopping them from stealing those ideas? As matt said before me, the ability to take a screen shot of anything on your monitor has made it possible to steal anything in the world of the internet, and then re-post it as our own.

Even if an object such as a picture has a water-mark, or a label on it, anyone with a decent understanding of photoshop can remove those property marks, or completely alter the picture. Would even altering the picture in the slightest bit be enough of a change to call it your own? In terms of design I believe there is a very fine line in calling something your inspiration, and just flat out copying someone else's work. And because of this i believe the concept of intellectual property in the electronic world of design can be highly debated, such as plagiarism in the world of design is highly debatable.