Private Patreon Feeds Shared on Podbean

Find Creators Podcast
#1

A vanity search for my podcast happened to turn up a page on the Podbean website where someone had shared a private Patreon feed. I was able to “take control” of the feed and request Podbean remove it from their system, but I had to go through their help system, I couldn’t remove it myself.

A search of their system found 56 feeds containing “Patreon” and 25 containing the word “patron”, most of which are private Patreon podcast feeds. Some of the feeds there have dozens of followers–and that’s just the people accessing the content through Podbean.

When I emailed Podbean about this, here was their response:

Hi Nobilis Reed,

Thanks for contacting us. Your podcast was removed from our directory. Please check again.

When we investigated how your paid premium content could be available in Podbean, I found that your podcast feed (https://–URL REDACTED–) and mp3 files are available for public access.

In Podbean app, any user can add a podcast into the app by “Adding the Feed URL”. Probably, someone knows your podcast feed then added it to Podbean.

We’d suggest you make your mp3 files protected, otherwise, you could run into a similar problem where users can get your podcast on various Podcast Apps, such as Overcast, Downcast etc.

Feel free to contact us for any other inquiries.

Best Regards
Claire
Podbean Team

The team is correct, that anyone can share the private RSS feed with others and allow them to download the podcast mp3 files. IMHO this is facilitating a much wider dissemination of the feed than that.

I have contacted Patreon support to see if there is any way to see who might have shared this feed (i.e. is the auth token unique to a particular patron).

4 Likes
#2

I’ve had this happen on Podcast Addict and Castbox, and they have taken down the feeds. I have not checked podbean though.

I find it frustrating but also kind of free advertising. I would prefer if the podcast apps only listed offical/verified feeds in their public directories and not ones that users just add.

Would be cool if we could see those feed stats to see if anyone of them have more than a few downloads per episode.

#3

Podbean had stats. There were dozens of downloads on mine.

I doubt that the folks who got the content out of it are the type to turn around and support the Patreon now that the feed is removed.

#4

Was just reading the help files for this. Patreon should be able to connect the feed to an individual patron. Good luck.

#5

Yeah, Support got back to me, and said they would turn the issue over to their security team. They won’t notify me of the results of their investigation, nor would I want them to, but I’m glad they’re doing that much, at least.

I know I’m going to make sure to search regularly to make sure it doesn’t pop up again elsewhere.

1 Like
#6

It’s really sad that someone who supports your podcast would facilitate other people stealing it. You’d think that patrons would be invested in the success of the authors they support.

1 Like
#7

What are the known podcast directories that allow users to submit private RSS feeds? Until Patreon is able to solve the issue, I’d like to be able to periodically check myself to ensure that my feeds are not listed.

Podbean
Podcast Addict
Castbox

Any others?