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In what amounts to a massive victory for freelancers nationwide, the U.S Supreme Court ruled this morning that Web publishers and media companies must first obtain permission from writers before republishing their work in electronic databases.

In a 7-2 vote, the Supreme Court upheld an earlier ruling that some of the biggest publishing houses must pay freelance writers and photographers extra for republished work or must remove the material.

The ruling -- a blow to big media firms like the New York Times Co., the Tribune Co., Newsday, Time Magazine Inc. and Lexis/Nexis, could lead to billions of dollars in potential liabilities, according to the National Writers Union (NWU).

"Our message to the publishing industry now is: let's negotiate," said UAW Vice President Elizabeth Bunn, who directs the union's technical, office and professional department.

"The New York Times and other publishers face billions of dollars of potential liability for selling articles to which they hold no copyright. The way to settle these obligations is to meet at the bargaining table, so we can find solutions that are fair to writers, to the industry, and for consumers."

The ruling mainly affects articles, illustrations and photographs produced over a decade ago, before digital rights were incorporated into freelancer contracts. The landmark case hinged on the issue of how copyrighted works should be treated in an age when technology has advanced beyond what was available a decade ago.

While today's ruling is significant on moral grounds -- a position the NWU has long held -- it remains to be seen whether it will improve freelancer's economic condition. Today, many freelancers must sign "work for hire" or "all rights" contracts, which automatically transfer digital rights to publishers.

NWU president Jonathan Tasini, who acted as the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court hearing, issued a call today for the media industry to negotiate financial payouts to affected freelancers.

"The Court has upheld the spirit of the Constitutional protection for copyright, which was written for the benefit of individual authors. Now, it's time for the media industry to pay creators their fair share and let's sit down and negotiate over this today," Tasini said.

In a brief statement, New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr said the decision "means that everyone loses."

"The Times has lost this case and will now undertake the difficult and sad process of removing significant portions from its electronic historical archive. That is a loss for freelance writers because their articles will be removed from the historical record," he said.

"Historians, scholars and the public lose because of the holes in history created by the removal of these articles from electronic issues of newspapers such as The Times."

However, the NWU plans to be party to a class action lawsuit, which will seek to enforce the Supreme Court ruling. "We want to settle past claims in a reasonable fashion, and establish a mechanism so that freelancers can be compensated fairly from now on."

Freelance writers first sued the big media houses over inclusion of their work in paid access databases like Lexis/Nexis. A federal judge first ruled in favor of the publishers but an appeals court threw out that ruling in 1999, sending the case to the Supreme Court.