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True, and practically speaking it's pretty standard from what I've seen in writing fields. Very similar to music such as on Soundcloud. I think the only 'hangu

True, and practically speaking it's pretty standard from what I've seen in writing fields. Very similar to music such as on Soundcloud. I think the only 'hangup' that might be in the conditions would be "without limitation" insofar as when does "the things we need to do to provide Medium Services" conflict with the content producer being compensated. As in, if "partner companies" and Medium are engaged in some compensation / revenue undertaking, at what point does an author on the platform have some "say" in the way the content gets used...e.g. a person posts a beautiful poem, Medium can print that poem in an ad in the New York Times to self-promote, and the author seemingly gets nothing, which doesn't seem appropriate. Not saying that's the intent or anything, but I think healthy suspicion is helpful to all parties for clarity.

mst 11y ago
(riffing on your comments, not disagreeing) I'm looking at that and thinking the way they've phrased it means that 'without limitation' is required to avoid exposing themselves to lawsuits over details, and 'solely' is meant as their promise to the users. So ... healthy suspicion good, but I feel like they've tried to set it up so that they can only be sued for violating the letter of the agreement, but can (and expect to) be publically excoriated for violating the spirit. Whether they'll continue to live up to these ideals over time is (aaand we're back to healthy suspicion :) inevitably an open question, but I think the intent is to make it clear that those ideals do exist now in a way that allows us to hold them to it later.
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Excellent point, and thanks for elaborating on the "spirit" component as it relates to the phrasing. I'm on board with you in that it's a functional way of doing business, legally speaking, but could benefit from public oversight (e.g. reputation).

mst 11y ago

(riffing on your comments, not disagreeing) I'm looking at that and thinking the way they've phrased it means that 'without limitation' is required to avoid exposing themselves to lawsuits over details, and 'solely' is meant as their promise to the users. So ... healthy suspicion good, but I feel like they've tried to set it up so that they can only be sued for violating the letter of the agreement, but can (and expect to) be publically excoriated for violating the spirit. Whether they'll continue to live up to these ideals over time is (aaand we're back to healthy suspicion :) inevitably an open question, but I think the intent is to make it clear that those ideals do exist now in a way that allows us to hold them to it later.

6stringmerc 11y ago
Excellent point, and thanks for elaborating on the "spirit" component as it relates to the phrasing. I'm on board with you in that it's a functional way of doing business, legally speaking, but could benefit from public oversight (e.g. reputation).