What Do the Changes in Medium’s Terms of Service Mean?

Nothing Good for Writers

As of September 1st, Medium will be changing the ground rules. What does this mean for Medium writers?

Holly Jahangiri has broken it down for you in a post that is, in my opinion, required reading:

Here’s the most alarming change:

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.

I once wrote an essay for the Philadelphia Inquirer that did so well that the Inquirer proceeded to syndicate it to dozens of newspapers, all over the world. My essay ran in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. The Virgin Island Daily News. The Amsterdam Recorder. The Qatar Gulf Times! And many others.

The Inquirer made a pretty penny from my essay — but I didn’t receive a single extra cent. Why not? Because those were the terms of the contract I’d signed. They’d paid me well. Now my essay belonged to them.

And they happily monetized the bejesus out of it.

Under the new TOS, can Medium grab your most popular post and syndicate it all over the planet? Include it in an anthology of other popular Medium posts? Base a six part HBO series or a movie on it?

All without paying you a single extra cent?

I don’t see why not.

Can Medium grab every single one of your posts and proceed to monetize the bejesus out of them, without any further additional payment to you? And can they modify and change and alter your posts without your permission?

Sure.

Don’t believe me?

Read that paragraph again. (And if you didn’t read Holly Jahangiri’s post? Please take 10 minutes and read that too. It’s important.)

What can we do about this?

Well, we can all write emails to Medium ([email protected]) asking them to reconsider this change. (“Dear Medium. Please reconsider the proposed changes to your TOS. If you go through with them, I believe that many terrific writers will leave the platform — and I may be one of them.”)

If enough of us do this, maybe it will work.

But? It probably won’t. Medium isn’t a democracy. Medium has every right to make these changes. This is Ev Williams’s sandbox. We only play here.

Which means that we’ll all have decisions to make. Do we leave the platform? (Hello, Patreon!) Stay but reconsider what we post?

I’m still thinking this through. The only thing I know for sure is that, after September first, I will no longer be posting my best work on Medium. For one thing, I don’t want to lose control over it.

I don’t want it reproduced, modified, adapted, published, translated, or made into derivative works.

And? If anybody is going to monetize the bejesus out of my stuff, it’s going to be me.

(Update: Because enough Medium writers protested the changes, Medium has issued a redraft. Problem solved? Not entirely, but the result is something I can live with. Here’s my response to the “new, improved” TOS:

Writing Coach and Medium Sherpa Roz Warren writes for everyone from the Funny Times to the New York Times, has been in 15 Chicken Soup for the Soul collections, and is the author of Our Bodies, Our Shelves. Drop her a line at [email protected].

(Don’t count on Medium to put my work into your feed! Because they probably won’t. Subscribe below to get all of my dazzling content in your in box — for free!)

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