Holy Ts & Cs, Did We Just Win?

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I sauntered to take a wee look. And lo and behold, Medium <b><i>have in fact </i></b>changed one important thing in their new (new) TOS. Updated 19th August, the offending clause now reads:</p><p id="9375" type="7">Unless otherwise agreed in writing, by submitting, posting, or displaying content on or through the Services, you grant Medium a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid, and sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly perform and display your content and any name, username or likeness provided in connection with your content in all media formats and distribution methods now known or later developed on the Services.</p><p id="ceee">There is nothing stating <b><i>without compensation to you. </i></b>Now, that’s a huge relief, and a great swivel. And for a moment I felt quite buoyant. Wow, they listened, we won!</p><p id="9e59">Unless….I read about a hustle years ago. Suppose you broke one of your mother’s favourite teacups. Bone china, little blue flowers on it, mum loves it, it was a wedding present type of thing. Instead of going and telling mum what you’ve done, the suggestion went, tell her instead that you’ve smashed the whole set. It’s in bits, all over the floor. You are so sorry, heartbroken, you can’t believe how clumsy you are. Mum will start squealing and this is when you quickly counter with, no mum it’s ok, it was just one cup! Mum is still peeved, but now she’s relieved too. Oh well, she thinks, only one cup. I can live with one broken cup at least I still have the rest of the tea set for when cousin Maude comes to visit.</p><p id="a50b">Did Medium just teacup us? (No risque jokes about teabags thanks). Did they intend the whole time to reverse that part of the clause if we made enough of a stink?</p><p id="e303" type="7">I’m still thinking about the new TOS. Not sure I am going to keep my work here, my trust is not what it was a few days ago. But at least now I can stay and clap and tweet, I can keep editing, and still feel ethical about it.</p><p id="ac70">It’s good news of a sort, definitely my cup of tea. Now we just have to worry about ichi.pro stealing all our work.</p><div id="d8ea" class="link-block"> <a href="https

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://readmedium.com/data-aggregators-are-violating-the-copyright-of-thousands-of-medium-writers-and-likely-medium-dd036a5a3149"> <div> <div> <h2>Data Aggregators Are Violating the Copyright of Thousands of Medium Writers (and Likely Medium…</h2> <div><h3>Note: Thank you to Gaby Rosales for bringing this issue to my attention!</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*d4KOxVPc0RxYrIQyPS6lng.png)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><h2 id="56d7">But what do you all think? Are the new (new) TOS acceptable? Did we fight the good fight and win? Or did we all just get teacupped?</h2><div id="2a2d" class="link-block"> <a href="https://celticchameleon.medium.com/medium-terms-of-service-have-changed-radically-6a0726c79fc7"> <div> <div> <h2>Medium Terms Of Service Have Changed Radically</h2> <div><h3>It’s important not to ignore these facts. Here’s what you need to know.</h3></div> <div><p>celticchameleon.medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*X3t1A179Cs4s3SWTOMJXHQ.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><figure id="9fb7"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*Ms9Ke3AJl7W-duYDJ_ggHw.png"><figcaption>Source: Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/MikeGoad-29415/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=4051707">Mike Goad</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=4051707">Pixabay</a> copyright free</figcaption></figure><p id="31c7"><i>Copyright Alison Tennent 2020, all rights reserved. Scottish by birth, upbringing and bloodline, Australian by citizenship. If you’re reading this anywhere but Medium, this work may have been plagiarized, please drop me a line at [email protected].</i></p></article></body>

Or did Medium just troll the whole website?

It looks, at first glance, like Medium may have listened to us. And I think maybe these Ts and Cs aren’t as bad as the ones they were trying to fob us off with. Do we have any scholars in the house who can confirm that these Ts & Cs updated today, while still overreaching, are bearably so?

If you’ve been playing along at home you may remember this recent clause added to the new TOS, which Medium kept assuring us didn’t mean they could nick our work and do to it whatever they wanted without paying us for it (but it did).

“Unless otherwise agreed in writing, by submitting, posting, or displaying content on or through the Services, you grant Medium a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid, and sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly perform and display your content and any name, username or likeness provided in connection with your content in all media formats and distribution methods now known or later developed without compensation to you.”

That’s a cut and paste from the updated TOS dated 18th August 2020.

Medium tried to slip this past us a few days ago, much to my very vocal displeasure, and that of several others. I was ready to pack up and leave and had started removing older articles. In fact, I wrote my final lament, complete with close up and fade to black. Several friends had already stripped much of their work from the site.

But today I received a comment from Julius Reizen telling me that the issue had been resolved. I dismissed him initially, because I’d been reading lots of comments from people who really, really wanted to believe in fairies and didn’t want to believe the new TOS meant Medium could pirate our work for free (but they did mean that).

Julian insisted they’d been changed, so off I sauntered to take a wee look. And lo and behold, Medium have in fact changed one important thing in their new (new) TOS. Updated 19th August, the offending clause now reads:

Unless otherwise agreed in writing, by submitting, posting, or displaying content on or through the Services, you grant Medium a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid, and sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly perform and display your content and any name, username or likeness provided in connection with your content in all media formats and distribution methods now known or later developed on the Services.

There is nothing stating without compensation to you. Now, that’s a huge relief, and a great swivel. And for a moment I felt quite buoyant. Wow, they listened, we won!

Unless….I read about a hustle years ago. Suppose you broke one of your mother’s favourite teacups. Bone china, little blue flowers on it, mum loves it, it was a wedding present type of thing. Instead of going and telling mum what you’ve done, the suggestion went, tell her instead that you’ve smashed the whole set. It’s in bits, all over the floor. You are so sorry, heartbroken, you can’t believe how clumsy you are. Mum will start squealing and this is when you quickly counter with, no mum it’s ok, it was just one cup! Mum is still peeved, but now she’s relieved too. Oh well, she thinks, only one cup. I can live with one broken cup at least I still have the rest of the tea set for when cousin Maude comes to visit.

Did Medium just teacup us? (No risque jokes about teabags thanks). Did they intend the whole time to reverse that part of the clause if we made enough of a stink?

I’m still thinking about the new TOS. Not sure I am going to keep my work here, my trust is not what it was a few days ago. But at least now I can stay and clap and tweet, I can keep editing, and still feel ethical about it.

It’s good news of a sort, definitely my cup of tea. Now we just have to worry about ichi.pro stealing all our work.