An open letter on plagiarism and who uses your work — updated

I’ve now had a few exchanges with Medium about what re-use means. Or, rather “posting across surfaces.”

Here’s what they said (shortened for readability):

“Thanks for writing in. We do appreciate your feedback. We have changed and clarified the language in the terms, and posted this in this blog post:

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

We’ve now edited the Terms of Service to more clearly reflect what we said in that post.

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.

This license doesn’t give Medium permission to sell your content to a third party, and we’ll never do that. You’re not granting us permission to use your content outside of Medium. You’re also not granting us copyright to, or ownership of, your content.

So, for example, we’ll never claim the right to develop your content into materials such as books, films, or television shows without your knowledge and express consent.

To restate: You own all the content you post on Medium, and we make no claims to it, nor will we ever in the future. We do not, and will not, sell your content or information. Ever.”

Let’s be clear about this, though: nothing protects anybody from co-optation or plagiarism of their work.

I wrote a long, widely read article for Scientific American Mind in 2013 about undergoing treatment with psilocybin in a clinical trial to treat cancer-related depression. Michael Pollan promptly plagiarized it, and sold a book in a jiffy to Random House for six figures. He got a Radcliffe Institute Grant — because he needed one? no access to libraries?— and has become the self-designated go-to “expert” on psychedelics ever since. A few academics I’ve spoken with who conducted the actual research treating patients with psychedelics for cancer-related depression (I was a patient in one such study) are openly furious about the fees he’s paid: $75,000 per audience. By way of contrast, most academics in the field make about $500 for a lecture.

I’m not the lone ranger. Pollan has done this repeatedly. There are a number of pissed-off food scientists and writers out there as well. Interestingly, none wanted to be quoted.

No matter what you do, famous is as famous does. If someone is already a name, they can lift your material with impunity, even from Medium. This is how American Publishing works. They publish people who are famous because they’re easier to promote and cash in on because they’re… famous. If you’re not famous, you have no leg to stand on.

Michael Pollan and most guys like him have never had an original idea in their lives. But they wanted to be Famous Writers. The only way for them to get what they wanted— and they’re good at getting what they want — is to steal it. And stealing work from women is much easier, because women are much less likely to have enough money to sue. And women are much more afraid to stand up for themselves. Some women — not me but a few I’ve spoken with— view plagiarism of their work by a famous writer as a kind of flattery. Kind of like saying being raped is actually being paid a compliment. It isn’t an act of violence. No, sweetheart, you must have misunderstood: it was a statement about your beauty.

Sad but true.

I’ve spent the past two years recasting my own book proposal, working title: “Brave New World: the case for psychedelic therapy.” I’ve published several excerpts on this site. Interested publishers are free to contact me.

So, beware: if you write well, and you have an original thought, the Michael Pollans (and Johan Haris and Jonah Lehrers and plagiarist extrordinaire, David Leavitt— who nicked an entire book, and did — in fairness — actually get sued) may steal it from you. They will probably get away with it.

And so might Medium.

UPDATE: A recent exchange with a Medium manager — the professional colleague who introduced me to Medium in 2017 — provided more clarity: Medium won’t re-use content without an agreement.

Medium values content providers who offer something people want to read— we do bring in eyeballs, after all — even those of us who are not already ‘names.’

As far as copyright law is concerned (and I’m not an expert, I just know the bits I’ve confronted in my professional life), Medium treads a fine line between “work for hire” and providing a platform for self-publishing your own (rights reserved) material. I have the feeling there was some upper-managerial move to finesse this distinction— at least until the wailing and gnashing of teeth began. (Note I wrote ‘feeling’. I have no evidence-based proof such a thing occurred.) The fact remains: the material you publish outside of the paywall is like posting on Twitter, or Facebook, or Instagram. Anybody can do anything with it, really. The Partner program stories are copyrighted. If you have any doubt about proving who generated your material and when, download your content from Medium on a semi-regular basis and make sure the dates of the download are preserved on the files. But you’ll always have to be prepared to stake a claim. Not just on Medium, anywhere.

For the time being, at least, my work stays here. I’ve had some great responses to my writing in unexpected ways. The feedback has informed my work. That’s all for the good, in my book.