5 ms·

My biggest problem with Medium is not the platform, but the licensing. I don't like my content being simply licensed to them.

by mcdoug 10y ago

onion2k 10y ago
I don't like my content being simply licensed to them. How would they publish it on their website if it wasn't licensed to them?
- ominous 10y ago
  By not asking for a license? Does a newspaper stand have a license for the content it sells? Disclaimer: I may be an idiot.
  - onion2k 10y ago
    If the newspaper stand was taking a copy of a newspaper from the publisher and making it available to millions of people by posting it on the internet then yes, they would need a license.
    - ominous 10y ago
      Ok. A newspaper stand that accepts returns.
      - icebraining 10y ago
        A newspaper stand doesn't make copies. First sale doctrine roughly means you don't need a license if you're just selling an object with the licensed content in it.
  - adamlett 10y ago
    Copyright is about the right to produce copies, not to sell them. The newspaper stand doesn't produce the copies it sells.
    - ominous 10y ago
      Neither does medium. Medium is a dumb pipe. My browser renders the page. Does firefox own a license? Internetting is hard.
      - adamlett 10y ago
        That's not how the law sees it.
      - icebraining 10y ago
        Firefox is a tool you use. People (incl. companies) need licenses, not tools. And yes, you do get a license to download the content for the purpose of viewing it.
      - tzs 10y ago
        Medium makes copies. If we want to continue with newspaper stand analogies, Medium would be like a newspaper stand that has one copy of each newspaper and magazine it distributes, and has a photocopier. When a customer wants a copy, that newsstand uses the photocopier to make one for them.
      - pjc50 10y ago
        Medium is not a dumb pipe, they're a publisher; if they started plagiarising articles and publishing them without permission, they'd be DMCAd. There is a legal exemption for "dumb pipe" in EU law: https://copyrightblog.co.uk/2012/10/17/what-is-a-temporary-copy-and-who-cares/ https://copyrightblog.co.uk/2012/10/17/what-is-a-temporary-c... which had to be put in because otherwise every single router on a TCP/IP connection would require copyright licensing. Your browser renders the page by means of making a copy, which requires a license to you. Usually this is granted by the website. It has been argued in some places that this includes a right to control the "integrity of the presentation", that is that you're not licensed to display the page if you block ads.
        ominous 10y ago
        For the average reader, there is no difference between medium, google cache, rss reader, archive.is, screenshot, pdf, getpocket.com, copy pasted snippet or printed pages of the same article. In that sense, medium means nothing. Just some meaningless wheel in the whole system, annoying us with their ads. We owe them nothing. Medium is blogger is livejournal is a column in a newspaper is private subreddit is google+ is everything2 is svbtle is obtvse is wordpress is textfiles is github pages is a mailing list is paper. People ignore it takes some effort to "publish" content. The dissemination of said content is such that we don't really respect, at all, these "publishers". I don't really have a point, am just slightly annoyed to be reminded such plumbing is, in fact, a business model.
  - matt4077 10y ago
    You're not an idiot, the are plenty of people with that misunderstanding (it comes up quite often for almost any service: dropbox, twitter, Facebook, flickr, etc.). All these services are obviously reproducing their users' copyrighted works. To do that they need that license. The difference to and ISP is that they change these works (or at least their representation) and a few others. That exemption, as well as those for caches and search engines, are codified in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act#Other_safe_harbor_provisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_....

My biggest problem with Medium is not the platform, but the licensing. I don't like my content being simply licensed to them.

by mcdoug 10y ago

My biggest problem with Medium is not the platform, but the licensing. I don't like my content being simply licensed to them.

onion2k 10y ago

I don't like my content being simply licensed to them. How would they publish it on their website if it wasn't licensed to them?

ominous 10y ago
By not asking for a license? Does a newspaper stand have a license for the content it sells? Disclaimer: I may be an idiot.
- onion2k 10y ago
  If the newspaper stand was taking a copy of a newspaper from the publisher and making it available to millions of people by posting it on the internet then yes, they would need a license.
  - ominous 10y ago
    Ok. A newspaper stand that accepts returns.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      A newspaper stand doesn't make copies. First sale doctrine roughly means you don't need a license if you're just selling an object with the licensed content in it.
- adamlett 10y ago
  Copyright is about the right to produce copies, not to sell them. The newspaper stand doesn't produce the copies it sells.
  - ominous 10y ago
    Neither does medium. Medium is a dumb pipe. My browser renders the page. Does firefox own a license? Internetting is hard.
    - adamlett 10y ago
      That's not how the law sees it.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      Firefox is a tool you use. People (incl. companies) need licenses, not tools. And yes, you do get a license to download the content for the purpose of viewing it.
    - tzs 10y ago
      Medium makes copies. If we want to continue with newspaper stand analogies, Medium would be like a newspaper stand that has one copy of each newspaper and magazine it distributes, and has a photocopier. When a customer wants a copy, that newsstand uses the photocopier to make one for them.
    - pjc50 10y ago
      Medium is not a dumb pipe, they're a publisher; if they started plagiarising articles and publishing them without permission, they'd be DMCAd. There is a legal exemption for "dumb pipe" in EU law: https://copyrightblog.co.uk/2012/10/17/what-is-a-temporary-copy-and-who-cares/ https://copyrightblog.co.uk/2012/10/17/what-is-a-temporary-c... which had to be put in because otherwise every single router on a TCP/IP connection would require copyright licensing. Your browser renders the page by means of making a copy, which requires a license to you. Usually this is granted by the website. It has been argued in some places that this includes a right to control the "integrity of the presentation", that is that you're not licensed to display the page if you block ads.
      - ominous 10y ago
        For the average reader, there is no difference between medium, google cache, rss reader, archive.is, screenshot, pdf, getpocket.com, copy pasted snippet or printed pages of the same article. In that sense, medium means nothing. Just some meaningless wheel in the whole system, annoying us with their ads. We owe them nothing. Medium is blogger is livejournal is a column in a newspaper is private subreddit is google+ is everything2 is svbtle is obtvse is wordpress is textfiles is github pages is a mailing list is paper. People ignore it takes some effort to "publish" content. The dissemination of said content is such that we don't really respect, at all, these "publishers". I don't really have a point, am just slightly annoyed to be reminded such plumbing is, in fact, a business model.
- matt4077 10y ago
  You're not an idiot, the are plenty of people with that misunderstanding (it comes up quite often for almost any service: dropbox, twitter, Facebook, flickr, etc.). All these services are obviously reproducing their users' copyrighted works. To do that they need that license. The difference to and ISP is that they change these works (or at least their representation) and a few others. That exemption, as well as those for caches and search engines, are codified in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act#Other_safe_harbor_provisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_....