Pirated podcasts: Podnews found 1,778 copied shows on one host. Lock your RSS feed before you need to.

Podnews published a number on 27 October 2026 that every podcast owner should read: 1,778.

That is how many shows it found copied into Spreaker and also listed in Apple Podcasts, using a Podcast Index snapshot from 24 October.

James Cridland, who wrote the piece, then tried it himself.

It took minutes. He pasted the Podnews Daily RSS feed into the import page on a free account, and the audio, artwork, titles and descriptions all came across.

Here is the complication. Nothing in that process asked him to prove the show was his.

A feed is public by design. Apps need to read it, so anyone else can read it too. Which means the thing that distributes your show is also the thing a copier needs.

VALORAE Arc is a short-form clipping agency for podcasts and founders, and everything it cuts depends on the owner's right to the show, so this one sits close to home. I want to walk through what a podcast owner can do this week, and where each fix runs out.

Step 1: Understand what a copy costs you

A copy can quietly take three things.

First, the numbers. Podnews says plays of a Spreaker copy do not appear in the official download figures for the original show.

Second, the money. The copy earns the original publisher nothing, and Podnews says listeners can hear extra ads inserted on top of the ones already in the audio.

Third, the listener relationship. Someone who follows the copy by mistake leaves their ratings and reviews on the wrong listing.

And copies can climb. Lisa Lacy, who hosts Notes From the Edge, wrote on Podnews that within about five days a copy of her show had reached #121 on an Apple Podcasts category chart, while her own show sat at #1.

She also lost downloads around that time and took a wave of one-star reviews.

Read her next line, though, because it is the honest part. She says she cannot conclusively attribute every lost download or bad review to the copy.

So don't read a dip as proof of piracy. Read it as a reason to go and look.

Step 2: Turn on the feed lock

Do this first, because it is the cheapest step here.

Lacy says many hosting providers offer it under a name like Feed Lock, Podcast Lock or Lock Feed from Transfer. Check your host's podcast or RSS settings.

If you cannot find it, ask your host whether it supports the Podcasting 2.0 podcast:locked tag and how to enable it.

Set to yes, that tag tells participating platforms to reject an import of your feed. Spreaker told Podnews that it honors the tag in its importer.

That is the good news.

The bad news is in the same article. Cridland reports that many hosts do not support the tag yet, and that Spreaker itself did not appear to let you add it to your own show.

A lock is a sign. It is not a wall.

It stops platforms that choose to check. Anyone who downloads your episodes and uploads them by hand never touches your feed at all. I still think you should turn it on today, because it is close to free and it removes the laziest path.

Step 3: Search for your show as if a stranger owns it

Most owners search their own title, see their own listing, and stop.

Lacy's advice goes further: check episode descriptions, artwork, publisher names, hosting platforms and unfamiliar RSS feeds, across Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker and other directories.

Look at the author line especially. In Podnews' example, a copy of a well-known show carried a different author name while keeping the real title.

Finding one copy does not mean you found them all, because a single feed can reach several directories.

If you want to go further, Podnews published the query it used against the free Podcast Index data. On 2 November it added that the Index now produces daily lookalike data as well, and counted 1,706 Spreaker shows still duplicated in Apple Podcasts after only 72 had been cleaned up.

That last figure matters for how you plan. A public report did not clear the backlog.

So set a recurring reminder. Once a month is fine for most shows, and I picked that number by feel, so adjust it if your show is growing fast.

Step 4: Save the evidence before you complain

This is the step people skip, because they are angry.

Lacy's list is the one to copy: screenshots, URLs, RSS feed addresses, publisher names, chart positions, dates, and any sign of ads you did not authorise.

Document what you saw, not what you suspect. Her own write-up is a good model, since it separates what she documented from what she can prove.

Keep your side of it ready too. Original project files, publish dates from your host, and your first upload all help show which version came first.

Arc has delivered 500+ videos on the assumption that the person paying owns the footage. The proof a clipper should ask for is the proof a host may ask for in a takedown: who recorded it, who holds the files, and whose name is on the first upload. If you have never checked who holds your files, start with who owns your social accounts and work outward from there.

Step 5: Report to the host holding the audio

Directories feel like the obvious place to complain, because that is where you found the copy.

Go to the host first.

Podnews' reporting guide, written in 2021, explains why: a successful report to the host should make the content disappear from every podcast app, while directories mostly do not store the audio and may feel they do not need to act.

To find the host, search for the copied show on Podnews, which should link to it. Then look for a copyright or abuse-reporting contact. The guide warns these pages can be hard to find.

Lacy's network, Gamut, filed complaints and contacted platforms, and she says a major listing came down within about 24 hours.

But she also says one takedown did not finish it, because the duplicate had spread to other directories. And she had a network behind her. A solo host has to run that same list alone.

If the host stalls, contact the directories directly anyway. Slower is still better than nothing.

Step 6: Keep one version of your show easy to identify

None of the steps above stop a determined copier.

So make the real show easy to tell apart. Keep one official link on your site and use it everywhere. Say your host's name and publisher name in your show notes. Point clips, guests and sponsors at that same link.

Short-form helps here, in a small way that I can't measure. Clips that send people to one named show page give a listener a reference point when two listings look alike. I have no data on how often that saves a follower, so treat it as hygiene and nothing more.

The clip side has its own version of this problem, and YouTube's match tool will probably miss it. I covered that in someone clipping your podcast without asking.

The short version

• Turn on your host's feed lock today, then confirm the podcast:locked tag is live.
• Ask your host directly if the setting is missing.
• Search directories monthly by publisher, artwork and description.
• Save screenshots, URLs, feeds and dates before you report anything.
• Report to the host holding the audio first, then the directories.
• Treat a download dip as a reason to look, not as proof.
• Keep one official show link and use it everywhere.

Clips for the people who own the show, at valoraearc.com.