What Did Spreaker Promise on November 9?
Four changes by the end of 2026, and support for the lock tag at some later date. The promises came in an email from John Rosso, president and CEO of Triton Digital, which Podnews published as a press release on November 9 (Spreaker commitment, via Podnews). Spreaker will add “extra reminders of our Community Rules and Terms & Conditions” to sign-up and monetization emails. It will email the owner of the original feed when a show is imported, “giving them a chance to alert us to any unauthorized activity.” Before publication, it will query the Apple and Podcast Index publisher APIs to see whether the feed already exists elsewhere. Feeds flagged as possible duplicates will need an extra approval, including a check for a valid redirect, before they can be monetized.
The fifth item is the one with no date. Spreaker says it plans to let its own publishers add the lock tag “in the future.” That fills a gap Podnews pointed out on October 27, when it reported that Spreaker honored the tag on import but “doesn’t appear to let you add it to your own podcast” (Podnews).
The commitments answer what Podnews described then: a free account could paste another show’s feed address, have Spreaker “automatically check every hour for new episodes,” and apply for ads. Podnews said it found “1,778 pirated podcasts that were copied into Spreaker in this way,” and that Spreaker “keeps up to 41% of all the ad revenue” (Podnews). Our earlier explainer, Can Someone Copy Your Podcast and Sell Ads on It?, covers that first report and Spreaker’s initial statement.
What Does the New Import Code Ask Hosts to Do?
Respect locks, support locks, tell the original owner, and keep a copy off ad sales and directories until the old feed redirects to it. The code, published by Podnews on November 9, has six clauses, summarized here from the text (Podnews):
| Clause | What a signing host agrees to | What it prevents |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Respect locks | Refuse to import a feed whose lock tag says yes until its creator removes it | Copies of locked shows |
| 2. Support locks | Let its own customers set the tag | Hosts that honor locks but offer none |
| 3. Notify | Email the original creator about an import, at least at the feed’s listed address | Silent copies |
| 4. No money before redirect | No ads or payouts until a redirect from the old feed is confirmed; test audio allowed | Earning from a copy |
| 5. No directories before redirect | No one-click submission to Apple, Spotify and others until then | Duplicate listings |
| 6. Redirect as proof | Treat a 30x redirect, or the original feed going away, as the owner’s permission | Moves the owner did not make |
Podnews lists commitments from RedCircle, RSS.com, Spreaker and Transistor and suggests an industry body should eventually take ownership of the code, which is voluntary. Legitimate moves already depend on a redirect, as our guide to moving a podcast to a new host explains.
How Many Big Shows Use the Lock the Rules Depend On?
Almost none. We took the 100 shows on Apple Podcasts’ US chart as served on November 10 (Apple Marketing Tools), looked up each feed address (Apple Search API), and read each feed for a podcast:locked element. Of 99 public feeds, two said yes: The Bible in a Year on Fireside and followHIM on RSS.com. Five said no, four of them on Libsyn and one on Flightcast. The other 92 had no lock tag.
Number of feeds checked (99 in total), November 10, 2026
Source: Media Morpheus Research scan of the RSS feeds for Apple Podcasts’ US top-100 chart (Apple Marketing Tools RSS API, chart updated 13:57 GMT; feed addresses from the iTunes Lookup API), November 10, 2026.
Host is the feed’s hostname after redirects. The two locked feeds are on Fireside and RSS.com; the fifth “no” is on Flightcast. One charting show, The Ben Shapiro Show, returned no public feed address. A chart sample over-represents large shows and is not a census of hosts.
The pattern is set by hosts, not by shows: no feed on the seven largest hosts in the sample carried yes, and the only locked feeds sat on two smaller hosts that list support for the tag.
The namespace page lists 30 hosting and publishing tools that support the tag, among them Buzzsprout, Libsyn, RedCircle, RSS.com, Transistor and Fireside (Podcast Namespace). Megaphone, Simplecast, Omny Studio, ART19, Audioboom, Acast and Amperwave are not on that list, and between them they served 75 of the 99 feeds we read. A big network’s show usually cannot set the lock even if its producer wants to. The tag is also opt-in where it does exist: RedCircle says its feeds “can be locked by updating the Podcast is Locked checkbox” (RedCircle).
That has a direct consequence for the Spreaker problem. Spreaker told Podnews in October, “We also honor the podcast:locked tag in our RSS importer,” yet copying went on at scale (Podnews). With 97 of the top 99 feeds unlocked, that rule would not have stopped a copy of almost any of them. The new email notice and the duplicate check before monetization are what change the odds for big shows.
Are Copies Still Showing Up in Apple Podcasts?
Some are, and more have left dead listings behind. For each of the 100 chart titles we ran an Apple Podcasts search and kept any other listing with exactly the same name. That gave 52 listings for 27 shows; most were unrelated programs that happen to share a common title such as Pivot or Fresh Air. To separate those from copies, we compared each listing’s latest 20 episode titles with the original feed.
Three same-name listings on other hosts carried 18 to 20 of those 20 titles, for Crime Junkie, Dateline NBC and Good Hang with Amy Poehler; a fourth, for The Diary of a CEO, matched 6. We excluded a near-match for Smosh Reads Reddit Stories whose feed lists a Smosh email address. Ten more same-name listings pointed to feeds that now return “not found,” including three with near-consecutive Apple ID numbers and author fields reading “saw,” “fgty” and “tgre,” for Marketplace, Small Town Murder and Two Hot Takes.
A dead feed suggests a host removed the copy while the Apple listing stayed in search. Podnews said in October that while Apple had removed some copies, “many are still there” (Podnews). Apple’s rules already cover this. Guideline 1.4 bars podcasts “designed to mislead audiences by mimicking, copying, or duplicating other content,” and guideline 1.9 says content “may be removed if multiple copies of a show or episode are submitted” (Apple Podcasts). Rights holders file claims through Apple Legal (Apple Podcasts).
What Can a Lock Do, and What Can It Not?
A lock is a request to other hosts, not a technical barrier. It works only at hosts that read it and choose to obey it, and the namespace defines nothing beyond rejecting the import. Anyone can still download a public MP3 and upload it by hand, which no feed tag can see. The optional owner attribute adds “an email address that can be used to verify ownership of this feed during move and import operations” (Podcast Namespace), but none of the seven tags we found used it.
A locked show that later changes host must switch the lock off first, one reason it belongs with the security steps in our guide to protecting a podcast from hijacking.
What This Means for Anyone Buying a Placement
Check that the listing you are buying, pitching or sharing is the original. A sponsor should confirm that the Apple Podcasts ID and feed host match the media kit, because plays of a copy do not count toward the original’s downloads. A guest should link the publisher’s listing, not the first search result. Ask a producer whether the host supports the lock and whether it is on. Our recommendation, not a platform rule: put that question in your standard pre-booking checklist alongside the download-quality checks in our guide to spotting bot traffic.
Methodology and Limitations
We pulled Apple’s US top-100 podcast chart from its public marketing RSS API (updated 13:57 GMT, November 10, 2026), resolved feed addresses through the iTunes Lookup API, and read each feed between about 9:00 and 9:30 a.m. ET for the channel-level lock tag. For duplicates we ran one Apple search per title, kept exact name matches and compared the latest 20 episode titles. Four limits apply. First, chart shows are big shows, so small hosts are under-sampled. Second, the hostname after redirects stands in for the hosting company. Third, a matching episode list shows a copy of the content, not who made it or whether it was licensed; we did not contact the publishers. Fourth, both counts are a snapshot, and hosts can add support for the tag at any time.
Conclusion
The November 9 changes target the step that made copying pay: ads on a duplicate before anyone checks it. They do not reach hosts that have not signed, and the lock both documents rely on is missing from 97 of the 99 feeds we read, mostly because the largest hosts do not offer it. The next dates to watch are Spreaker’s own: the year-end target for its four changes, and whatever date it sets for letting its publishers lock their feeds.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can someone copy my podcast to another host?
Yes, if your feed is public and the importing host does not check ownership. Podnews reported in October 2026 that it found 1,778 shows copied into Spreaker this way. Spreaker says it will email original feed owners and review suspected duplicates before monetization by the end of 2026.
What is the podcast:locked tag?
It is an RSS element that tells other hosting platforms whether they may import the feed. A value of yes means any import “should be rejected,” according to the Podcast Namespace documentation. It only works at hosts that honor it.
Which hosts signed the podcast import code of practice?
Podnews lists commitments from RedCircle, RSS.com, Spreaker and Transistor for the code it published on November 9, 2026. The code is voluntary.
How many top podcasts lock their RSS feeds?
In our November 10, 2026 check of the feeds behind Apple’s US top 100, 2 of 99 were set to yes, 5 to no and 92 had no lock tag. None of the 35 Megaphone or 19 Simplecast feeds had one.
How do I report a copy of my podcast on Apple Podcasts?
Apple says rights holders who believe a show violates their intellectual property should submit a claim to Apple Legal through its content dispute page. Its guidelines bar shows that copy or duplicate other content. This is not legal advice.
Does locking my feed stop me from changing hosts?
No, but you have to turn the lock off at your current host before the new host can import the show, then set up a redirect from the old feed.
Sources and Methodology
This explainer is built from Spreaker’s November 9, 2026 commitment, the Podnews code of practice of the same date, Podnews’s October 27, 2026 investigation, the Podcast Namespace documentation for the lock tag, Apple Podcasts guidelines, RedCircle’s help page, and our own scans of Apple chart feeds on November 10, 2026. Counts and shares are ours. Advice for sponsors and guests is our recommendation, not a platform rule. We did not test any host’s importer.
- official Triton Digital / Spreaker, Spreaker commitment (press release published by Podnews). Four changes, year-end target, lock support “in the future.” Read November 10, 2026.
- trade press Podnews, A code of practice for podcast migrations. Six clauses and the four committed hosts. Read November 10, 2026.
- trade press Podnews, Spreaker lets anyone copy your podcast. 1,778 copies, hourly import, 41% revenue share, lock support. Read November 10, 2026.
- standards Podcast Namespace, podcast:locked. Tag definition, owner attribute, list of supporting tools. Read November 10, 2026.
- platform documentation Apple, Apple Podcasts content guidelines. Guidelines 1.4, 1.7 and 1.9. Read November 10, 2026.
- platform documentation Apple, Content infringement. Claims through Apple Legal. Read November 10, 2026.
- platform documentation RedCircle, What does locked mean when importing a podcast?. Lock checkbox and import refusal. Read November 10, 2026.
- official Apple, Apple Marketing Tools RSS feed generator and Search API. US top-100 chart and feed addresses for our sample. Read November 10, 2026.