Medium
Medium requires binding arbitration and blocks class action lawsuits. They claim broad content licensing rights including the ability to sublicense your work and create derivative works from it. The platform can terminate accounts with or without notice and disclaim most liability for their service.
The Bottom Line
Medium requires binding arbitration and blocks class action lawsuits. They claim broad content licensing rights including the ability to sublicense your work and create derivative works from it. The platform can terminate accounts with or without notice and disclaim most liability for their service.
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Notable Clauses
“You and Medium agree that any dispute arising out of or related to these Terms or our Services is personal to you and Medium and that any dispute will be resolved solely through individual action, and will not be brought as a class arbitration, class action or any other type of representative procee...”
“Other than for the types of liability we can't limit by law (as described in this section), we limit the total liability of Medium and the other Medium Parties for any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms or our Services, regardless of the form of the action, to the greater of $50.00 USD ...”
“by submitting, posting, or displaying content on or through the Services, you grant Medium a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid, and sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly perform and display your ...”
“We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your access to the Services with or without notice.”
“Your use of our Services is at your sole risk. You understand that our Services and any content posted or shared by users on the Services are provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a ...”
“You retain your rights to any content you submit, post or display on or through the Services.”
“You have the right to opt out of binding arbitration within 30 days of the date you first accepted the terms of this section by sending an email of your request to trust@medium.com .”
Protect Yourself
ACTIONABLESettings and actions you can take to limit your exposure
Opt Out of Forced Arbitration
Preserves your right to sue in regular court and join class action lawsuits instead of being forced into individual arbitration
- Send an email to trust@medium.com within 30 days of creating your account
- Include your full name and address in the email
- Clearly state you want to opt out of binding arbitration
Download Your Content Backup
Get copies of all your articles and data in case your account gets terminated without notice
- Go to Settings → Account in your Medium profile
- Click 'Download your information'
- Select what data to include and request the download
- Save the downloaded files to your computer or cloud storage
Monitor Content Usage
Since Medium can sublicense your content, regularly search for unauthorized republication of your work
- Set up Google Alerts for unique phrases from your popular articles
- Periodically reverse image search any original graphics you've posted
- Search for your article titles in quotes to find republished copies
Better Alternatives in Social Media
These social media services scored lower (less crazy) on their terms
Disclaimer:The clauses shown above are excerpts from publicly available Terms of Service documents. Ratings and severity levels reflect community and AI assessment, not legal advice, factual claims, or determinations about a company's legality or intent. Clauses marked “VERIFIED” have been confirmed as exact quotes from the source document. Clauses marked “AI-extracted” were identified by AI and may contain errors. Always verify against the original TOS.
Get notified when Medium updates their TOS
We'll email you what changed and what it means
By subscribing, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.