Medium Heard Our Complaints About the New Terms of Service and Made Some Changes, But Were They Really Listening?

They updated their terms of service agreement, but is it enough?

Medium made some changes to their TOS in response to our calls to action.

I, and several others, recently published articles on the new Terms of Services(TOS) language.

My two articles addressed the new language in the TOS and broke down the offending paragraph by “clause” and explained what, in my own humble opinion, they meant. Here is the first of the two articles I wrote, where I broke down “the paragraph”:

Here is the follow up article, where I discuss and break down the answer they gave me to my query to the legal department at Medium:

In one of the stories, I commented to my own story with the following question:

Dear Your Friends @Medium: Thank you for the clarifying statements. We all know they are non-binding unless they can be used in a lawsuit to establish fraud or intent. So, if you really mean it, why not incorporate that plain language into the Terms of Service? Your content providers would be placed much at ease and it would rebuild the trust you seem to value so much.

Yours temporarily,

Chuck

It appears they may have done just that-incorporated clarifying language into the TOS. But is it enough?

Here is there most recent response to the above comment/question:

Thanks for your feedback, we’ve updated the language in the terms. You can read more about this update in this new blog post:

https://blog.medium.com/clarifying-mediums-new-terms-of-service-bad566e3f7da

After receiving this response, I went to the blog post, above, and read their article.

I then went to the “new” terms of service and reread them again. I wanted to see if they made any changes to “the paragraph.”

They did. They changed the last four words.

I have italicized the changes below.

The last words in the original “paragraph” were “. . .later developed without compensation to you.”

The new “paragraph” says “. . .later developed on the Services.”

Is that enough? Does it even make a difference? Or is it appeasement? Is it enough with the added clarification clauses which define “Services?”

Below is the “clarification” of the paragraph we were all raising hell about. This “clarification” is in the TOS and follows “the paragraph.” “The paragraph” is the first block:

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.

Medium needs this license because you own your content and Medium therefore can’t display it across its various surfaces (i.e., mobile, web) without your permission.

This type of license also is needed to distribute your content across our Services. For example, you post a story on Medium. It is reproduced as versions on both our website and app, and distributed to multiple places within Medium, such as the homepage or reading lists. A modification might be that we show a snippet of your work (and not the full post) in a preview, with attribution to you. A derivative work might be a list of top authors or quotes on Medium that uses portions of your content, again with full attribution. This license applies to our Services only, and does not grant us any permissions outside of our Services.

So, it seems Medium heard our bitching about the wording of the paragraph, and made some minor changes to it. They also added their “clarification” of the paragraph that really seems to provide very little clarity at all. It certainly doesn’t seem to negate the language of “the paragraph,” or provide the protection we have all been asking for from their ability to change, modify, or sublicense our content in “all media formats.”

Notice the parts I bolded above. . .do they make you feel better? The strongest language is in the last sentence, where they say “This license applies to our Services only, and does not grant us any permissions outside of our Services.”

That sounds great, until you remember that “the paragraph” also says “in all media formats and distribution methods now known or later developed on the Services.”

What this means to me is Medium is in the process of developing new “services” or media and want to use our content. Is that a good thing? A bad thing? Did anything change?

That’s for you to decide. Personally, I appreciate the clarification, but I still think they left room in their TOS to take advantage of our content. But I also think their clarification narrows that down.

I’m still contemplating what the changes mean. However, you should all read the new TOS and decide for yourselves. There is a possibility that the changes will make you feel better about staying.

In addition, the fact that they “heard” us and made an attempt to help us understand what the TOS changes mean, may provide many of us with the rebuilt trust we need to stay on the platform and keep writing our content.

I just don’t know if they were really listening to us. Let me know what you think.

I am tagging several people who may have expressed concerns about this issue. Forgive me if I overstep by tagging you. And forgive me if I missed you. Dr Mehmet Yildiz Kristi Keller Sharon Hurley Hall Riku Arikiri 🕊️ James Finn Danny Cherry Sherry McGuinn Jae Hermann JennyB Yael Wolfe Lisa Hurley Eliot Kersgaard Rasheed Hooda Aric D Mayer Alison Tennent Linda Caroll Marie T Smith Susan Brearley Holly Jahangiri Tree Langdon Lori Brown

Chuck Roast tries to write Satire and Humor. Sometimes other stuff, too. But one thing he likes is comments from readers to interact with. Please feel free to leave a comment, Or, if you write your own story, please tag me. I’d love to read them and comment back to you.

PS: If you enjoyed this story, here’s a subtle push towards my newsletter. When you sign up with your email, I’ll send you some original, never before published content, and some links to my Medium stuff as soon as I finish with this medical crap. Thanks to Kristi Keller for the inspiration for the wording of this blurb.