one of my fave issues surrounding copyright on the net is going to be heard by the Supreme Court in the US: High Court Takes Freelance Case. It goes like this: as a freelance writer, when I sell an article, I am only selling a license of first publication of my work. Back in the day, however, many or most companies were turning around and using material covered by such contracts in other ways without further compensation. The companies’ position is that, ” a lower court ruling in the authors’ favor ‘sets a national rule requiring the destruction of decades’ worth of articles’ stored in electronic archives. “
That’s not really true, though. They are free to use such articles – if they want the right to subsequent publication, they should just pay the copyright holder for such a licence and not a first-publication license – pretty simple. The point is more or less moot now, as most freelance contracts have been amended to cover later electronic usage – at no extra fee to the copyright holder. A freelance writer has very little power in that relationship – it’s a buyer’s market.
