Intellectual property, or IP as it's known, has become a legal minefield, with a profitable industry developing on the internet on the back of other people's work.

Media conglomerate Viacom, which owns MTV among a host of other channels, is chasing YouTube owner Google through the US courts for damages of $1bn, claiming "massive infringement" of copyright on the video-sharing website. And the English Premier League has also launched legal action against YouTube for having "knowingly misappropriated" its intellectual property.

Copyright rows aren't confined to the online realm. Wrangles over inventions, ideas, brand names and software have been going on for centuries. It affects all of us and, from September, Leeds University will be running a law course examining the different aspects of intellectual property.

"It's something we should all have an interest in because it affects everything and everybody – business, money, health and culture," explains Graham Dutfield, Professor of
International Governance, who is leading the course along with Professor David Wall. Together, they will be looking not only at how copyright works, but how businesses use it in a world propelled by ever-changing technology.

"One of the key issues is over-protection," says Prof Dutfield. "If patents are granted with a broad scope of protection and enforced aggressively, this can slow down future innovation. Sometimes, companies 'sit on' their inventions and do nothing except charge very high licence fees, making it too expensive for others to get the rights to use them and improve
on them."

Sometimes though, as Prof Dutfield explains, the question of ownership isn't clear cut.

"There is a plant, called Hoodia, that grows in the Kalahari desert and has been used for centuries by the San bushmen who would go away for several days on hunting trips and eat this plant to stave off hunger."

Scientists in South Africa then began testing it as a possible appetite suppressant to help tackle obesity.

"So far, it's proved difficult to turn into a product, but some health shops sell extracts of the plant. Despite this, the San people have not been given any money from this trade, even though the plant grows on their land and the knowledge came from them.

"Having said that, there's a perception that, in the past, people were more noble and everything was shared, but I don't think that was true."

Although the struggle between ownership and access will always exist, there is still confusion over what can be patented.

"Aspirin was first patented in 1899 by Bayer, even though willow bark – which contains the active ingredient that relieves pain – was something that had been known about for more than 2,000 years. The doctor of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius knew about it, but it only became patented when scientists purified the active substance and created a product."

More recently, theft of intellectual property on the internet has become endemic with around 127m cases of digital piracy in 2007. Music is among those industries worst-hit. "It has tried to stamp out illegal downloading, which is understandable, but because it was slow to react, the record companies have been playing catch up and now it's almost a futile exercise," says Prof Dutfield.

"Although piracy is wrong, access to music is important for creativity. If you talk to any musician, they will tell you they were influenced by someone else, and part of the creative process is to copy or adapt something that already exists."

When it comes to rock and pop legends, they don't come any bigger than Elvis Presley, who last year yet again topped the dead celebrities rich list, weighing in with a hefty $52m (£32.4m).

David Wall, professor of Criminal Justice at Leeds University, is in the middle of writing a book about Elvis's copyright legacy, which, he says, stretches way beyond his iconic songbook. "My wife and I recently bought an Elvis ironing-board cover because we thought it was amusing, and, by a happy coincidence, we needed one, and even that was licensed by the Elvis estate."

But tapping in to the financial pulling power of famous people is nothing new. "It was American companies who first exploited sports stars and celebrities with their bubble-gum cards that kids used to collect."

Fashion is another area where copyright can be a contentious issue. "The assumption is that fakes undermine companies because they're doing cheaper copies. But if you look at British youth culture, there is a long tradition of adopting elite brands. Fred Perry was part of the skinheads uniform and then 'chav' culture adopted Burberry," says Prof Wall.

However, intellectual property rights don't just affect big-name brands.

"We are all owners as well as users. Every time someone writes a letter or an email they have rights over it. You can't copyright or patent ideas, you can only copyright something if it's written down. In the digital world there's often no original image. Every time someone copies a file, it creates a new original of the picture, and, as new technologies advance, the question of how we manage copyright will become increasingly important."