“Your content
You own the rights to the content you post on Medium. We don’t claim ownership over any of it. However, by posting or transferring content to Medium, you give us permission to use your content solely to do the things we need to do to provide Medium Services, including, without limitation, storing, displaying, reproducing, and distributing your content. This may include promoting your content with partner companies or services for broader broadcast, distribution, or publication.
We will never sell your content to third parties without your explicit permission.”
I’m not a lawyer and I definitely don’t play one on TV, but I think Medium have amended their terms to be writer friendly since this article was posted.
No?
Perhaps Sarah Agudo and Alex Feerst of the Medium legal team can shed some light on this. If M have updated the terms as I interpret, then it’s best to get posts like this off the site or at least post a disclaimer update — because, they are scaring the shit out of me and likely legions more.
While M may go bye-bye, the crux of this article seems to point to a bogey man that either never did or no longer exists. Again, this is my layman’s interpretation, but “You own the rights to the content you post on Medium” seems pretty clear.
Yes, they will distribute your content to promote the website, but I doubt it would stand up in court if they argued that they needed to sell your content to “provide Medium Services”. Besides, I know a couple of class-action guys who would love to get a piece of the millions hanging out in the M bank account if the team decided to go all Wolf on Wallstreet.
It appears the first sentence of the terms actually trumps most (I can’t think of everything) malfeasance that may occur during Medium’s use of your content.
Am I wrong?
If so, can someone please point out the exact location in the terms that allow M to sell my content without paying me. By the way, yuck, I don’t package content — I freakin’ write!
HANG ON!
Before everyone piles in and tells me they are making loads of money off my free labour by selling adverts, data, and other shit because I’m here making this a great place — dial it back.
I’m not suggesting Medium isn’t allowed to make money on my work, indirectly. I post on Medium for free knowing full well Ev Williams and even nice guy Saul Carlin team are doing everything in their power to make money off my amazing scribbles and the network those scribbles sit inside. Hopefully, they aren’t being assholes in the process by abusing my data — but, I can remove my content if I find out this is the case.
I am suggesting that the terms, as I read and interpret them, do not give Medium the right to directly sell my writing without my agreement.
Where’s THOMAS BARTON JD when you need him!?
Peace.
