The Supreme Court issued a ruling today that may not be heared but will be felt around the world. The ruling states that companies must pay royalties to freelancers when they resell their work through archiving services like Lexus/Nexus. This seems like a no-brainer (and indeed, the 2nd circuit Court of Appeals agreed unanimously in 1999), and could really rock the publishing industry. I hope it doesn’t turn out to hurt freelancers in the end by discouraging publishers from using their work at all, or forcing them to sign work-for-hire agreements more often than they already do.