Medium, I’m Not Lawthing Right Now

Copyright, legal issues, lawyerspeak and my new Terms & Conditions for you (yeah, you read that right)

It’s no secret that a lot of people are on edge right now about the new Terms and Conditions that Medium wants to bring into effect starting September 1st, 2020.

I’ve not written anything useful over the last few months and I’m not exactly one of the people who need to worry about “their life’s work getting stolen”. But let’s be hypothetical for a moment and break down that beautiful legal language that has been thrown at us (and honestly, which I clicked on ‘accept’ without even realizing it, as I — and I’m sure others too — do all too often.)

So let’s dive right into it, shall we?

Rights and Ownership

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.

Short answer: No.

Let’s break it down.

you grant Medium a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid, and sublicensable license

In simple words: You allow Medium to copy your writing and use it commercially, worldwide, without owing you any additional royalty and with the ability to “sublicence” it to third parties (like taking your last fiction story post and develop it into a book, which they then sell and earn royalties on)

I’m not willing to do that. If I ever create something that would be in any way valuable to monetize and further develop, then I protect my right to keep it close. I don’t want to waive my rights on any intellectual property that I might develop simply because I was naive enough to post it here for initial feedback.

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 simple words: We can use your story, we can change it a little, we can copy your online course on creative writing which you shared through us and develop it into our own Medium exclusive course for writers (without your name and royalties and anything) and then we have some marketing experts who will take that course and sell it on Udemy and elsewhere, we all earn money and you get nothing.

Or we take your stuff and sell it in other languages as books, e-books, audiobooks, courses, or whatever you could think of.

I’m not willing to agree to that either. I pay for premium membership. And in return, I retain all my rights exclusively.

in all media formats and distribution methods now known or later developed without compensation to you.

In simple words: If one day someone develops a new medium, then Medium can use your content there to generate traffic and open up a new venue that brings dough to the business. Again, without compensating you. You clicked “Sure, why not. I like being broke.”

In easy words, even if they promise you that nothing will change (for now), this is a timeless and legally binding decision that can bite you at some point in the future. Maybe a change of leadership and a new CEO who suddenly likes milking you for your value.

Maybe someone of you wrote an incredible article that has driven millions of viewers to this site over the past few weeks. Have you made it a book yet? Why not? I’m sure someone at Medium is asking him- or herself the same question. And a quick talk with the higher-ups may net him a quickly scribbled “third party agreement” that he can take your stuff and write his own book with it. He’ll be protected under the Medium ToS as he’s sublicensed it from his friends at Medium.

Or thanks to the advancement of A.I., maybe someday they can feed your stuff into an A.I. that creates high-value content from your initial stuff.

Again, this is all very very unlikely. But never say never.

So this brings me to my last quote from the updated ToS:

Unless otherwise agreed in writing, by submitting, posting, or displaying content on or through the Services

Which is what I am officially doing with this very article right now.

Disclaimer: I am herewith making use of that right you just stated above (in easier words: I am withdrawing from

granting 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 me.

Of course, it says “agreed in writing”, and that means two parties share their thoughts on the matter. Also, Medium will still keep the same right it has right now. It can simply remove and exclude me from using their platform. Which is fine.

So please view this public article (which will not get distributed in any topic for obvious reasons) as me publicly making use of the right you’ve given me in the very first line of your new, shiny, legal paragraph.

Here is my ToS for you (and I’m by no means a lawyer, so bear with me):

Terms of Service

Rights and Ownership (Copyright clause, liability)

Unless otherwise agreed in writing, signed by legal representatives of both parties involved, Medium waives its rights to reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly perform and display or in any other way use content provided by me through their service without offering additional compensation for the use of my content not covered in their current payment system, also known as the Medium Partner Program.

In simple words: You don’t do anything with my stuff other than showing it here and paying me the Medium Partner Program revenue.

The currently implemented system allows me as an author to earn royalties, paid by Premium members of the Medium platform who view my content through the service provided by Medium. This is seen as fair reimbursement for content on display on Medium. Any additional distribution of my content without additional reimbursement in form of separate royalties, including but not limited to the creation of derivative works and translations based on the content I provide via the use of the Medium service, would pose a copyright violation.

In simple words: This is an explanation to limit my content to Medium.com, no derivative work, no translations, no other media. Unless you pay me extra for using my content in such a way.

All rights to the content I provide are reserved, no third party license or sublicense is at any point given to Medium. Medium is allowed to display contents provided by me ‘as is’.

In simple words: Sharing is caring, but not here. Neither Medium nor any subcontractors and third parties dealing with Medium get at any point any rights to use my content in a way I am not aware of.

Medium is liable for any damages that occur to me by distributing any of my contents or its derivatives without my written consent outside of the Medium platform (www.Medium.com), for example via “sublicensing”.

In simple words: If they do anyways, they owe me money. More than they’d like to pay for shitty writing anyways.

Severability

If any article or clause in the Terms is determined to be invalid or unenforceable, in whole or in part, according to the Consumer Contract Act or other laws or regulations, etc., the remaining provisions of the Terms, and the remaining portions of provisions determined to be invalid or unenforceable in part shall continue to remain in full force, and the Company and Members shall strive to ensure that the original intent and the intended legal and economic effects of the invalid and/or unenforceable articles, clauses, or portions thereof are attained by revising the sections that need to be revised in order to make the invalid and/or unenforceable articles, clauses, or portions thereof legal and enforceable.

In simple words: Because I’m no lawyer and my wording may be wrong, (or because my imagination went through with me while writing this whole thing), this clause says “If one point is simply wrong, doesn’t make everything else wrong too. We re-write it until it’s right”. Neat little paragraph and a must-have in many ToS.

Termination

By hosting this publicly accessible article through their provided service, Medium agrees to the clauses stated above, which will effectively invalidate any contradictory clauses regarding ownership of intellectual property currently visible on the Medium help center. (https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/213481318)

In simple words: I can’t offer you a quick “click accept to agree” button, so we do it this way. You have all the power to make this whole article vanish. If you don’t agree, use that to say “I disagree”. If you don’t, given your ability to remove the article, shows me that you agree and thus keep it online.

If Medium disagrees with the written Terms and Conditions, they reserve the right to terminate my access from the platform and delete all content provided by me prior to termination. In case of a disagreement with the proposed terms, termination has to be processed prior to September 1st, 2020.

In simple words: Medium can just delete my account. If they want to as a response to this article, they should do so before September 1st.

All my content has to be removed, as the rights to this content remain solely with me at all times. Any further display of any contents provided by me past the point of service termination for the purpose of generating revenue is prohibited. Medium is liable to reimburse me for any damages caused by using my intellectual property past the point of service termination.

In simple words: If they keep getting views on my articles even though they don’t pay me royalties anymore, they have to pay up for it.

Outstanding royalty payments that accumulated prior to termination of the contract have to be paid in full via the provided payment method on the day of termination.

In simple words: If you decide to terminate me right here and right now, make sure you still pay me this month’s outstanding royalties for views that I already got. I got a daughter to feed after all.

Some last words

So, there you have it. I fixed it. In the improbable (but not impossible) case that Medium for some reason tries to make some extra money with my shitty writing without paying me the other 2 cents that would likely come from it over the course of six months, we’ll be having a legal problem. As Medium has the right and the ability to either host or delete this post, any inaction can be seen as a silent agreement to the proposed terms.

I wouldn’t claim ill intent behind Medium’s decision to write the clause that caused such an uproar over the past weeks, but better safe than sorry. Making no public announcement at all would be seen as acceptance of any such clause.

And you don’t need to be a lawyer to understand that the writing in that clause is pretty “generalizing”, which is often used in legal contracts to give one party a wide range of options. Whether they act on these options or not is another topic. But once you sign it, it’s done if you do nothing about it.

It doesn’t mean they will do something bad. It just means that if they then go and do something bad and you don’t like it, they will point out that you agreed to it 3 years ago.

Whatever happens, I really enjoyed coming up with this whole article about it. I hope it doesn’t end up on the internet without me getting my cut.

Well, see you around (maybe)