Influential Introvert: Communication Coaching for Professionals with Performance Anxiety - Podcast Plagiarism: What to Do When Someone Copies Your Work

Starting point is 00:00:00 What do you do when somebody plagiarizes your podcast? Well, I will tell you the steps that I took in today's episode. Welcome to podcasting step by step, where you will learn how to create a podcast that's irresistible. I'm Sarah Maigatel, a podcast launch consultant and an American who has been permanently based in Europe for more than 10 years. I especially love helping fellow expats and location independent entrepreneurs build their online brands and businesses through the magic of podcasting. Looking for one-on-one support, visit sarahmicatel.com to book a podcast launch BIP day with me or to check out one of my online courses and make sure that you grab my five-step formula for getting on podcasts at sarahmicatel.com slash pitch formula.

Starting point is 00:00:49 Claytrism is rampant in the digital space. You've got people on YouTube who are ripping off other people's videos and then reposting them as their own. James Cridlin recently reported in Pod News that anchor makes it really easy to pirate other people's podcast you've got people stealing other people's blog content and posting it as their own. Or I was even listening to a podcast a few months ago about somebody whose content was getting ripped off. And he had to do this huge investigation on his own and then discovered that this other website that was using his content had actually outsourced their content creation. So there's a lot of unscrupulous people out there, especially if people are going for like low cost content creation outsource. outsourcing that you never know what you're going to get. You might be plagiarizing other people

Starting point is 00:01:37 without even knowing it. So I listened to a podcast episode about that a few months ago, as I mentioned, and then in that same week, it came to my attention that somebody was plagiarizing me. I found out that somebody created a podcast that was word for word copy and content of mine. So their podcast was not about podcasting at all, which made it especially odd, but their podcast episode was called podcasting step by step. And a lot of the content was word for word taken off of my sales page for my group podcast coaching program. And then this person pretty much copied that program as well. So not just my content, but then also like the program. That's fine. I mean, People take different ideas.

Starting point is 00:02:32 There are plenty of group coaching programs out there and even group podcasting program. So that I didn't mind so much. But the fact that she was word for word taking the things that I had said, the way I would say something, which is just strange that you would take somebody's tone of voice and all of that. And so some friends and colleagues said to me, like, well, what are you going to do? You should take legal action against her. And I wasn't sure what to do myself because you hear all the time, well, that's just the price of doing business. People get ripped off all the time.

Starting point is 00:03:07 Just let it go and move on. Like they can't copy you. And so I didn't do anything for quite a few months. I just kind of was thinking, well, I guess this is the price of doing business. People are going to copy you and whatever. And if I'm being perfectly honest, I also don't like conflict. I'm a total enneagram nine and kind of didn't really want to deal with it. So I sort of made an agreement in my head like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to make a decision.

Starting point is 00:03:32 I'm either going to put this out of my mind and just move on or I'm going to deal with it right now. So I decided to just forget about it and try to move on. And people warned me against that. I have a good friend who owns a very popular food tour company. And she had some other people copy her who like went on her tours and copied like the exact same. formats or the places that she went to. And they just did some really nasty things to my friend. And so she was like, you need to nip this in the bud. That's what I should have done. So I didn't listen to my friend. And then a few months later, this other podcasterhood copied. My content

Starting point is 00:04:16 originally came out with two more podcast episodes that were very, very close to things that I had done. I decided I need to do something because number one, that's just I shouldn't let somebody treat me that way and take advantage of me in that way. But then also it's just good business practice because right now SEO is getting really good. I can identify, you know, I don't want people to come across her work and then think that I'm plagiarizing her, right? That would be ridiculous. And again, this. person's podcast had nothing to do with podcasting. So it didn't really even make sense that she was putting these episodes out there other than to promote the new business that she created after

Starting point is 00:05:03 listening to this podcast. And again, it's fine. Like I know other people who I've inspired to start their own podcasting businesses. And I think that's totally cool, but make it your own, right? You know, you don't copy word for word people's content. And I also felt kind of conflicted because this other podcaster seems like a good person. I think you can start making stories in your head when you don't know exactly like what's going on in a situation. And sorry if this episode's a little all over the place, but it was, it's kind of an emotional thing when people rip you off. And especially when you think that they're, they're not like an evil cartoon or anything. She seems like a good person and her podcast seems to be like to generally want to help people.

Starting point is 00:05:52 I'm not going to call her out or anything like that, but she seems like a decent person who generally wants to do good in this world. And so I didn't know if she was outsourcing her work to somebody who was doing unscrupulous things, although I got the impression that she did not because she said that she did everything on her own. So anyway, I was like, I can't just make up story. in my head about what's going on. I just need to nip this in the bud. So today I want to just walk you through the steps that you need to take in case you get plagiarized and you need to take some action. And I'm not a lawyer. This isn't legal advice. If you need a lawyer, then obviously you can talk to a lawyer,

Starting point is 00:06:37 but I will walk you through the steps that I took to successfully get that episode taken down where she was reading off of my website. So step one, you want to file something called a DMCA take down notice to protect your podcast. So you are going to send this notice to the alleged plagiarist podcast media host. So what you need to do is find out who is hosting the podcast of the person who's been copying you. and you can do that by going to podnews.net and just looking up the podcast. And that's James Cridland's website. And so he's got a lot of handy tools over there. And one of them will let you know when you look up the podcast, who the podcast media host is. So you've got that information. You know who the podcast media host is. Next up, you need to go to their website and look up DMCA to find out

Starting point is 00:07:38 exactly who you need to send your takedown notice to. So it might be the legal department. It might be to support. You will find that information there on the website. And then you've got to type up your DMC take down notice. Now that might sound super complicated. It's actually much easier than I thought it was going to be. I think that was another reason I put off doing this for so long. It just sounded so complicated. And there are services you can pay to do this for you. But it's actually super easy. In this notice, you need to include what your original work is, what has been copied, and then you need to say where it's been copied, who copied it? So what's their contact detail so they can get in touch with this person? You need to include a statement saying that what you're

Starting point is 00:08:27 saying is true and that your complaint is in good faith, which just means you're the original owner and this other person didn't have permission to post what they posted. And then you have to include your signature. So in the show notes, I will include links to some examples of take down notices. And on these sites, they welcome you to just take that language exactly to suit your own take down notice. So it's pretty easy. So you've got your notice and then you email it to the podcast, media host and then they are going to get in touch with the like alleged infringer. And so in my case, they copied me in that email to the other person. And if the other person doesn't respond at all, then the media host is supposed to take down the content that copied you.

Starting point is 00:09:24 But in that email, the host is pretty much asking the person who copied to take down the content themselves and then hopefully everything is resolved right away and they could come back with like a counterclaim. I'm not sure how often that happens. But in my instance, the person who copied me wrote back and said, you're right. I did take notes from your episode. I can understand how infuriating it must feel and I've taken the episode down. Please accept my deepest apologies lesson learned. I hope you can agree to removing the DMC take down notice because you could like the DMC take down notice. Like if you're alleging that somebody copied you, it could potentially be like their whole podcast could get taken down if they're a person who's, you know, acting in bad faith, I guess. And as I said, like my goal, my goal is not to destroy this person's life or her podcast.

Starting point is 00:10:19 I think her podcast is doing good in this world. And I don't know why she did what she did. And again, we can't just, we can't make up stories that we have no idea. And so I just responded to her. Thank you for removing the episode. There's no longer the need for the DMC take down order. I think you're a very talented podcaster and you seem like you're a good person with a good heart. I'm happy that I've inspired you with my work, but obviously copy and crosses the line. I have faith that this won't happen again. And I accept your apology. I wish you the best. So all's well. That. That's. Well, that. ends well, but it went much smoother than what I was expecting. And I just feel better knowing that I did the right thing. So if somebody plagiarizes you, I wouldn't ignore it. I would definitely try to nip it in the bud. And look, we're all inspired by other people's work. Other people, things that they've done, our ideas are unique takes on things that have come before us. So of course our creations are going to be influenced by other people. But we just can't outright copy the work of other people that's against the law. And so again, if somebody inspires us or

Starting point is 00:11:33 we want to share an idea, let's give them credit where credit is to. So I hope that this episode was helpful to you and it wasn't too scary. Plagiarism is just a part of content creation. But there are tools that we can use to protect our work. So again, if anyone copies you, file a DMC, take down notice, and then hopefully everything will be solved pretty fast. That's all for now. To learn how you can sign up for a one-on-one podcast launch BAP day with me or to learn more about one of my online podcast courses, visit sarahmicatel.com. And make sure that you grab my five-step formula for getting on podcasts at sarahigatel.com slash pitts formula. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a

Starting point is 00:12:30 free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmychatel.com slash blank no more.

Influential Introvert: Communication Coaching for Professionals with Performance Anxiety - Podcast Plagiarism: What to Do When Someone Copies Your Work

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