6 ms·

"they're just asking for a license that allows them to distribute the content" The license is much broader than this: "By furnishing your User Content to Medi

by jforman 13y ago

"they're just asking for a license that allows them to distribute the content" The license is much broader than this: "By furnishing your User Content to Medium, you give Medium a non-exclusive worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable license to utilize all copyright rights now in existence or that may arise in the future with respect to your User Content, in any medium that now exists or may arise in the future, as well as to do anything else that is reasonably appropriate to our Service and its use of your User Content (including, but not limited to, use of your name in association with your User Content to identify you as the contributor). The license has no restriction as to the medium, dissemination method, type of Service we may offer, or the type of systems or products that may be used in conjunction with your User Content." You can revoke the license by removing your content, which is a silver lining.

mrkurt 13y ago
Most of this is just defining the scope of distribution. Sublicensable is, perhaps, scary -- but it let's them legally allow other entities to distribute the content. This seems necessary for, say, RSS feeds if they want to let others use the content in aggregators. The mediums (lower case m) all make sense, a "best of Medium" coffee table book is still distribution, and likely reasonable? I am actually curious what their general user expectations are for this type of thing. Note that this is clarifying language, though, the right to distribute doesn't imply a specific medium ... so they would be getting the same thing even without being explicit. "Utilize all copyright rights" does include creation of derivative works, which would be an interesting thing for Medium to try and do (and probably go counter to what users would expect). I think that's the only one of the copyright rights that's "weird" for these terms. The "anything else that is reasonably appropriate" clause let's them do stuff that's not normally in the scope of copyright. Reasonable is a legally restrictive word and would actually give power to what their user base generally finds fair. It really seems more like cover-your-butt language than a significantly larger scope.

by jforman 13y ago

mrkurt 13y ago

Most of this is just defining the scope of distribution. Sublicensable is, perhaps, scary -- but it let's them legally allow other entities to distribute the content. This seems necessary for, say, RSS feeds if they want to let others use the content in aggregators. The mediums (lower case m) all make sense, a "best of Medium" coffee table book is still distribution, and likely reasonable? I am actually curious what their general user expectations are for this type of thing. Note that this is clarifying language, though, the right to distribute doesn't imply a specific medium ... so they would be getting the same thing even without being explicit. "Utilize all copyright rights" does include creation of derivative works, which would be an interesting thing for Medium to try and do (and probably go counter to what users would expect). I think that's the only one of the copyright rights that's "weird" for these terms. The "anything else that is reasonably appropriate" clause let's them do stuff that's not normally in the scope of copyright. Reasonable is a legally restrictive word and would actually give power to what their user base generally finds fair. It really seems more like cover-your-butt language than a significantly larger scope.