NEW media" experts have called for an international "summit" to tackle the problems incurred when national laws are applied to an international medium.
The call at last week's NetMedia conference in London came as journalists and publishers were told they face new opportunities and dangers as the Internet grows more popular.
Various court cases have been heard in Britain and elsewhere that have cut across international political boundaries, the conference was told. Applying one-country's laws to Web sites originating in other countries was difficult and subject to changes in the next few years, speakers added.
Barrister Clive Gringras told the conference that some existing laws covered aspects of Internet publication very well, but others need tightening. The nature of the Net would fundamentally change the future of journalism.
"There will be journalists with a following or an angle who will be able to put up their own Web sites, publishing their own articles," he said.
They will go through a publisher or an editor, unless they choose to employ an editor. They will become tiny discrete publishers themselves.
Advances in using money over the Internet will make this kind-of work profitable, delegates heard.
New technology giving users the power to make "micro-payments" using digital cash or credit cards will make it simple to download articles from the
Net for just a few pence each.
"News organisations are on the Web now because they know this technology is on the way. Instead of charging 75 pence for a whole newspaper, they can charge seven pence, or a fraction of that for just one or two articles," said Mr Gringras.
The financial rewards to popular content providers could be large. Many micro-payments from hundreds of thousands of "readers for each article would bring in a good level of income.
But the Internet also makes piracy of content easy, and protecting copyright will be another vitally important issue facing journalists whose work is published online.