Medium is very proactive!
They were already all over this — I filed pretty early on learning of ICHI.PRO, and cc’d Medium Support. They sent back an email (apparently had not noticed that they were merely cc’d, and thought I’d sent the DMCA to THEM) with the appropriate contact info for hivelocity.net and assured me that they were already working on the problem.
If I recall correctly, a web host has 3 days to respond. That site was down in less than two, as far as I can tell.
From the abuse manager of the latest plagiarist’s (former) website’s hosting company:
“None of the reported URLs are loading at this time as the website was disabled due to a previous abuse case and reseller was told to get it removed from the network. I would recommend that you keep this notice handy as when they move to another network you will need to send your notice to that abuse team for removal.
Let us know if you should require further assistance.”
He sounds tired and extremely pragmatic. :)
One thing everyone really needs to understand: Medium has a compilation copyright (meaning the site as a whole — like, AT&T can claim copyright over the whole phone book in its particular arrangement, but not over any person’s name and phone number), but expressly says — as we want them to — that writers retain ownership (copyright) of their content.
This means that Medium can file a DMCA take-down on the whole-site scraping, but it is helpful for each individual writer to file it on their own work. This holds as much or more weight, and frankly the more requests made, the more credible the claim and the more promptly attentive the hosting company will be in acting on it. (It’s not that any legitimate web host would drag their feet — it’s very much in their interest to act, because if they do not act, they can be held liable for copyright violation as a willful infringer in their own right. But give them ammunition!)
I cannot file a DMCA take-down on your work, and must sign and affirm (in a legally binding manner!) that I own copyright to material I am claiming was infringed. There’s a damned good reason for that. What if you had given ICHI.PRO permission to use your work? Remember this site, Sharon Hurley Hall? https://www.cofounderstown.com/ — they asked. A cursory glance might look like a scrape (and I don’t vouch for the whole site!) but they asked us, and we logged in and posted the requested articles. So imagine if someone just stumbled across this, and instead of giving us a heads-up, decided to send a DMCA take-down request on our behalf. Not cool, right? That would actually violate my rights in agreeing to post my writing on another site, even if done with the best and kindest of intentions towards me.
