Why Plagiarism In Podcasting Can Damage The Industry

Here's the question that propels this article: Does plagiarism only hurt the artist being plagiarized or does it hurt the entire industry where the plagiarism occurs? 

Specifically, we will be discussing the podcasting industry.

Let's look at the music industry first. For any music fan, it comes as no surprise that plagiarism lawsuits in the music industry have accelerated over the last decade. 

Recent music plagiarism lawsuits include Robin Thicke and his hit single, "Blurred Lines." Thicke and Pharrell Williams were ordered to pay five million dollars in 2018 for plagiarising Marvin Gaye. By contrast, in 2016, Led Zepplein won a long-running plagiarism claim against its mega-hit Stairway To Heaven. 

Presently, Taylor Swift will stand trial for a jury over allegations that some of her song lyrics Shake It Off was copied from another song. The first lawsuit in 2018 was dismissed, but now after the appeal is received, the trial will start again. The key here is that Swift used several common phrases popular in culture that are the crux of the lawsuit.

Right now, Dua Lipa is battling two lawsuits about her hit single Levitating. A common theme has developed in this -- and other -- cases whereby the chord progressions are similar to those used by thousands of pop songwriters. Listen to the May 12, 2021 episode, Progression Obsession, of the podcast, Twenty Thousand Hertz as a resource.

In the music industry, plagiarism lawsuits have proliferated over the last two decades as the industry itself seems to have a hands-off approach to better defining legitimate plagiarism with chord progressions, sampling, and coincendental similarity as key attributes.

 In the publishing industry, legal guardrails seem stronger. For example,  three separate groups have accused Dan Brown of plagiarizing their work to create his mega-bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code. For example, there was Lewis Perdue, who argued Brown had stolen from his novels The Da Vinci Legacy and Daughter of God. The judge didn't buy it—”Any slightly similar elements are on the level of generalised or otherwise unprotectable ideas,” he wrote in his ruling. 

 Now, let's turn to the podcasting industry. The most recent plagiarism claim involves an Anchor podcast called Soldier of Misfortune, which has been accused of being a complete rip-off by Brendan I Koerner, a journalist for The Atlantic who wrote the story for the magazine. His investigative work took nine years to report, Koerner says, and he accused the podcaster, Jesse Rapaport, of intentionally stealing his work. Koerner reports that Rapaport even pronounced the name of the main character wrong throughout the podcast. 

“Perhaps we can start a frank discussion about what constitutes fair use for podcasters?” Koerner has asked in several publications. 

So far, podcasting has not returned Koerner's call to action.

Since podcasting began as a media with "non-professionals, " those "first movers" started with a dream, a mic and plenty of fortitude. With that humble origin story, podcasting has been a collaborative and cooperative industry. 

That camaraderie extends to all podcast genres, including true-crime podcasts. There has been a cooperative, collaborative community of true-crime podcasters for years, if listeners don't know. They help each other out. Sometimes work on the same crimes. But they follow specific unwritten rules.

First, they credit others who have done research before them. Second, they cite their sources exhaustively. Third, they often work with victims' families, so they are solicitous of the grieving family's needs and don't exploit them for download numbers or ad revenue. Fourth, while true-crime podcasters attempt to cooperate with law enforcement, they also exhaustively review the actions of law enforcement and are not afraid to criticize their actions when warranted.

I have written before about Ashley Flowers from the Crime Junkie podcast and Audiochuck network and the plagiarism charges that have dogged her for the last three years. I'll just summarize them here.

In an August 2019, Variety article by Todd Spangler, he reports that, "Among the plagiarism allegations that have emerged against Flowers: Cathy Frye, who wrote a four-part series about the murder of Arkansas teen Kacie Woody for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2003, alleged in a post on Flowers’ Facebook page Sunday that “Crime Junkie’s” March 2019 episode on the Woody case relied entirely on Frye’s work without any citation."

Spangler cites two other examples:

Robin Warder, who hosts the true-crime podcast “The Trail Went Cold,” wrote a post on Reddit in 2015 about the mysterious death of a man named Henry McCabe. Warder told Variety that in a May 2018 “Crime Junkie” episode covering the same case, at one point in the podcast, “Ashley Flowers is practically reading [from the Reddit post] verbatim without credit.”

In a Reddit post two months ago on the “Crime Junkie” subreddit, a listener claimed that the “Crime Junkie” March 2019 podcast on Kirsten Hatfield, an Oklahoma girl who disappeared in 1997, was an almost “word for word copy” of a 2018 episode of “On the Case with Paula Zahn” that aired last year on Investigation Discovery.

A 2019 New York Times article also pointed out the accusations of Robin Warder and Cathy Frye and then added a new one, which seemed especially chilling.

Steven Pacheco, the host of the “Trace Evidence” podcast, said that “Crime Junkie” had used his work without permission as well.

Pacheco released a video juxtaposing quotes from his own 2017 podcast about Asha Degree, a nine-year-old girl from North Carolina who disappeared in 2000, with an episode that “Crime Junkie” aired in January.

To quote the Times article, "When he listened to that ‘Crime Junkie’ episode, Mr. Pacheco said he was surprised to hear the hosts describe the site where the child disappeared not as a forest, as published news reports called it, but rather as a “tree line,” which was how he described the location on his podcast after he had gone to look at the spot in person."

 Unfortunately for podcasting, the plagiarism didn't stop in 2019. Just last year, the editor of the Podnews newsletter -- widely read in the podcasting community -- reported on a new podcast by Ashley Flowers's podcasting company, Audiochuck. Called The Deck and released earlier this month, this podcast is eerily similar to a May 2020 podcast called Dealing Justice.

Then, in late 2021, the podcast creators of the highly successful true-crime podcast, The Murder Sheet, published two podcast episodes about the transgressions of Ashley Flowers related to plagiarism and unprofessional behavior with law enforcement.In this case, Flowers' actions negatively impacted their investigation of the heinous murder of Burger Chef employees in the 70s in Indiana.

"We're disturbed by the fact that Ashley Flowers — a figure with a troubling history of stealing others' work, flouting journalistic principles, and failing to acknowledge the labor of existing true-crime shows — has continued to profit despite refusing to acknowledge her extensive wrongdoing," The Murder Sheet's Aine Cain and Kevin Greenlee said in a joint statement. "When some in the media uphold Flowers as an inspirational figure, they insult the efforts of people within the true-crime community working to produce shows in an honest and ethical manner."

This isn't a dump on Ashley Flowers screed. Flowers may be the most prominenet podcaster accused numerous times of plagiarism, but she is by no means the only podcaster accused of plagiarism.

For example, another disturbing trend is that podcasters are "borrowing heavily" from published non-fiction.

In fact, author Brendan I Koerner had his book, The Skies Belong To Us, used by the true-crime podcast Rotten Mango virtually word-for-word.

These troubling examples of plagiarism do bring up some key questions for the podcast industry.

What happens if plagiarism begins to plague podcasting and slow growth?

How will podcast creators protect their content from being plagiarized?

How will podcast networks, advertisers, and podcast studios craft a structure that educates podcasters about how to avoid plagiarism? 

What happens if listeners become disenchanted with podcasting because of plagiarism issues?

Are there any solutions to address past, present and future plagiarism events in podcasting?

 Here's an excerpt from a Podcast Business Journal article, quoting Traci Long DeForge who is the founder of the Produce Your Podcast, and a Consultant -Speaker-Strategist.

"Bringing focus on plagiarism to the forefront of podcasting is important. One of the gifts of podcasting is the opportunity for those who’ve never had a foray into the media business to be able to have a platform for creativity and sharing their voice. This comes with a big responsibility that goes way beyond the type of equipment or hosting platform to use.

"Hosts need to be educated on the importance of having their own work protected and on respecting the value of other’s work. It’s easy to quote an article in the course of an episode conversation and get busy and not add the source to the show notes but it’s not acceptable. Podcasters can improve on this by doing better show preparation so they can cite the source of the article inside the episode. More Importantly, hosts need to make the time to write and publish detailed show notes and use them as a means of sourcing and giving credit where it is due."

 So, what can be done?

First, podcast creators and hosts should publish more detailed show notes so that attribution can be given and credit given to sources. Right now, show notes are hit-or-miss with podcasters. Podcast hosting companies should accept no podcasts without detailed show notes.

Second, the crowded field of true-crime podcasting has contributed to the increased risks of plagiarism. Too many podcasters are chasing too few juicy true-crime stories. Moreover, there are essentially two kinds of true-crime podcasts. There are the investigative reporters who dig into the crime with interviews of victims, suspects, law enforcement and other journalists. Then there are those true-crime podcasts that simply report on true-crime incidents without getting involved in the actual investigation. In effect, they are reporters, not investigators. They should draw that distinction with their listeners so their audience understands the difference.

For those podcasters who report on a true-crime from available data, they should be very careful and scrupulously detailed on sourcing and crediting the work of others on their episodes.

Third, as more podcasts become part of larger networks, those network managers should insist upon more detailed and complete sourcing of podcast content. Research into possible plagiarized content by large podcast networks should be part of a daily routine in the podcast creation process.

Finally, the podcast community should come together to swiftly punish recognized plagiarism. Plagiarism will grow like a weed if the podcast industry does not spray it with reputational and financial pesticide.

For listeners, you should report incidents of plagiarized podcast content. Perhaps, you've read a book that is duplicated word-for-word on a podcast. Or listened to a podcast that has egregriously copied the narration of another podcast. Contact the person or group being plagiarized and the person or group committing the plagiarism.

For podcasters, you can do the same. Making excuses for plagiarizers and looking the other way, only encourages more plagiarism.

Remember the DCs: Do Create content: Don't Copy content; Do Comment when you source material.