Youtube podcast piracy is real. Podcast audio, along with things like audiobooks, music, movies, and television episodes are taken and republished on YouTube constantly.
While Google and YouTube have made great strides in combating piracy with the introduction of Content ID in 2007, it only protects approved content creators who “must own exclusive rights to a substantial body of original material that is frequently uploaded by the YouTube creator community.”
The majority of podcasters and podcast material likely doesn’t qualify for this program. According to Google, here are examples of items that may not be exclusive to individuals:
- mashups, “best of”s, compilations, and remixes of other works
- video gameplay, software visuals, trailers
- unlicensed music and video
- music or video that was licensed, but without exclusivity
- recordings of performances (including concerts, events, speeches, shows)
The Power of YouTube
While YouTube may not come to mind immediately when you think of social media channels to share your podcast on, it’s the most popular video-sharing website in the world and the second most-used search engine following Google.
For perspective, YouTube has over two billion active users a month, watching one billion videos every day (credit: YouTube).
According to Pew Research, 73% of all adults in the US use YouTube. What’s even more interesting is the wide range of age demographics for the channel compared to other social channels. It’s popularity is strong across all segements.
The age demographics for YouTube are much more evenly distributed than the majority of social channels. Knowing the traffic and reach of YouTube helps us understand why it’s not only a great place to reach new listeners but also so attractive for pirates.
How to Mitigate Podcast YouTube Piracy
We know that podcast piracy exists, right? Then there must be people on YouTube looking for podcast audio, or else the digital pirates wouldn’t be putting in the effort to reposting it.
Let’s beat the pirates at their own game! Tap into the power and reach of YouTube by posting your own full podcast episodes to the platform to find new audiences and potential listeners. Posting full episodes to YouTube doesn’t necessarily require a video component–we know as podcasters you may not be super comfortable or have the equipment to film live episodes. That’s ok!
We created the Full Episode feature in Headliner for just this reason. Using this tool, you can take up to two hours of audio and turn it into a video that’s perfectly optimized for YouTube and Vimeo. If posting full episodes isn’t your thing, there are other ways to ensure your content is represented on YouTube.
3 Options For Promoting Your Podcast on YouTube
In this super helpful article from The Podcast Host, they outline three different options for promoting your podcast on YouTube:
- Full video of the episode: where you actually film yourself and your guests recording the show.
- Full audio with static image: usually, this image would be your cover art, or a photo of you or your guest if you have one. When using Headliner, you can also add a waveform and other text and images to your video.
- Microcontent: their fancy way of saying audiogram! Use Headliner to publish interesting and engaging clips from each episode to YouTube to hook the listener into listening to the full episode.
YouTube is an insanely large network and one that has a very broad age demographic actively using the channel. While you may not have huge success at first, having a presence for your podcast and pulling even a tiny portion of their users to your content could have a large payoff.
Our Full Episode feature is a perfect starting place for adding your podcast to YouTube. Now get creating!
