Ask HN: Is Medium legally an online blog? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is Medium legally an online blog?

25 pointsbwang2920 comments

One of the article that was once front page of HN https://medium.com/@pixelmagazine/where-are-chernobyl-s-children-a-photojournalist-s-honest-project-in-the-age-of-disaster-tourism-4cd333ab80c7 was taken down in 48 hours by a DCMA notice from National Geographic, clamming "The license for Gerd's two images does not permit use on the publishing platform Medium, and was not part of our negotiation or contract. ", although we purchased proper license for "One-time, Non-exclusive rights to use image within the Gerd Ludwig interview piece for Pixel Magazine online blog.". We spend lots of energy conducting interview and writing the article. What should we do?

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You talk to a lawyer (IANAL).

It does look at first glance however that your actual landing page links to your Medium page as your Blog (you treat G+ as a separate link). In this case, I would have a lawyer explain to them that you host your blog on Medium because that's where the cool kids are now (having moved on from tumblr of course).

So yeah, if you pixelmagazine.tumblr.com, they still might have filed a takedown but you'd still be right. Next time though, specify the URL to your blog in the contract (there should be a definition for the term Pixel Magazine blog, particularly since that's not your company's name!).

OP here

In the contract, there wasn't any URL address or domain specified. The only wording related to the content destination is "One-time, Non-exclusive rights to use image within the Gerd Ludwig interview piece for Pixel Magazine online blog." I think the problem is as many pointed out - that there was a confusion that the Pixel Magazine blog was hosted on Medium.com. We came up with the Pixel Magazine name very recently, and were also migrating our content to the new @pixelmagazine handle. We used to be @polarrist on medium. This might create more confusion because @polarrist is now all routing to @pixelmagazine now so https://medium.com/@polarrist/where-are-chernobyl-s-children... is pointing to the same article. We added more branding elements (the logo) to make sure this is indeed the Pixel Magazine.

I think the take away from our experience is that, definitely make sure in the contract, specify the URL and domain name.

As we only maintain this one blog, I think the "one time,non exclusive" reflects the spirit of the contract more. We should have just specify that we will only post this in one and only one blog ever hosted on the internet.

We pretty much don't have a place to post this article anymore, until we hear back from NG.

Isn't that a bad idea? Including a domain name that you don't even own in a contract?

Also, I took a look at the posts under @pixelmagazine handle, and they are definitely high-quality articles, and I'm sure they took a lot of efforts to produce, so, I'm curious, why do you choose to publish under Medium instead of setting up your own website?

Medium is a great place for managing and circulating content. The ecosystem is strong and until we have a strong need to brand every element of the magazine out, we don't want to give up the awesome readership from Medium.com

Hey Borui! That sucks, sorry to hear.

A couple of suggestions:

1. Check with lawyer.

2. Review your contract for the license. Specifically if you define where your blog resides. Medium also clearly states "You’re responsible for the content you submit to Medium and assume all risks associated with it, including anyone else’s reliance on its accuracy, or claims relating to intellectual property or other legal rights. By posting, you represent that you own or have the necessary rights to post the content on Medium, and that doing so doesn’t conflict with any other licenses you’ve granted."

3. If your claim is correct, NG probably just made a mistake thinking "oh medium.com, we didn't allow that!", however if you contract very specifically dictates where the blog resides (ULR for example) they are most likely negligent. We can't let content creators simply throw out DMCA notices left and right without them doing their homework:

Think Long and Hard Before Filing a DMCA Notification or Counter-Notice

Please think carefully before submitting a claim or counter-notice, especially if you aren’t sure whether you are the actual rights holder or authorized to act on a rights holder’s behalf. There are legal and financial penalties for fraudulent and/or bad-faith claims. Please make sure you are the actual rights holder, or you have a good-faith belief that the material was removed in error, and that you understand the repercussions of submitting a false claim.[0]

[0] - https://medium.com/policy/medium-terms-of-service-9db0094a1e...

[1] - https://medium.com/policy/mediums-copyright-and-dmca-policy-...

Thanks a lot! I've read the consequences and have submitted a counter notice, which might lead to a lawsuit from NG against us. However, after back tracking some emails, I think the confusion is indeed caused by what is "Pixel Magazine online blog", as there is no URL specified in the contract. As the article that was taken down was indeed from https://medium.com/@pixelmagazine/where-are-chernobyl-s-chil... , and the account has Pixel Magazine branding, following the rule of one time, non exclusive uses as when it was taken down, we'll lead NG to decide if they want to file a lawsuit on this. If we don't hear back from them in 10 days, the article will be back online. I will keep you guys updated!

More update.

Our lawyer gave us a go on the counter-notice. But this has started to distract me away so we're more likely to resolve it by licensing additional images from NG. The argument was that if the article is hosted on Medium, we should have disclosed this when sining the contract - otherwise it is considered deceiving because Medium is a large distribution platform as compared to an "online blog", although we believe online blog could also be large too. So basically, they would have priced the contract differently (higher) if they knew the article will be hosted on Medium : ).

You say your contract said "for Pixel Magazine online blog" specifically. So maybe it's not just a question of whether Medium is a blog, but whether that publication was on the "Pixel magazine online blog."

But none of us are lawyers, we can't say. There is no official legal definition of 'a blog' so far as I know.

They probably were looking for more prominent "Pixel Magazine online blog" branding on the page. Medium doesn't really highlight the fact that you seem to be hosting said blog on their site, as opposed to it just being some random yahoo's article.

Conform to the fine-print-details of your license! Consult a lawyer.

If an expert says your use on Medium is defensible on legal grounds, you can "counter-notify" Medium, which may restore access unless/until National Geographic chooses to sue you.

On the other hand, if the license contract has definitions and requirements that might not be satisfied by appearance on Medium, just publish the article someplace that conforms to the requirements. Blurb/link (without the photos) from medium and other places. You don't need to die on the 'Medium' hill, there's plenty of ways to get your news out.

sounds like they expected you to publish it on a domain Pixel Magazine controls. Medium is more like a social platform.

Whatever they expected... What is IN THE CONTRACT? I think this is the most important part. Does it specify one medium, or allows to use it in the article, wherever it is published?

There are one-off posts on Medium, I don't see the significant difference between a Publication and a blog on Blogger or Wordpress.com. Controlling the domain is definitively not required to have a blog.

Perhaps that publishing on Medium grants Medium (through some TOS terms) the right to republish and reuse anything published there (nominally for creating indexes and recommendations, but the legalese says what it says.)

Well, that would mean they've signed two contracts which they can't fulfill simultaneously, but it wouldn't make the original posts a copyright violation, only the subsequent redistributing that Medium might do.

So everyone else doesn't have to find it: the Pixel Magazine blog is for an app (company?) called polarr at polarr.co.

Have you contacted anyone at National Geographic? There is a good chance they made a mistake and this could be easily fixed.

Medium publishes blogs. They are the publisher.

Not the users.

it´s always the question of the contract in detail... when the contract does not help, courts can. but be aware that it´s always like russian roulette, if you negotiate an online case, with a judge, who possibly does not even know facebook or understands the term "blog"...

If there are no provisions against it in the contract it self, can you scan and post the contract?

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