Episode Details

Sponsored by Podscribe. Join us at the Innovation Stage at POSSIBLE! Learn how to buy audio more effectively and drive measurable results with Podscribe’s Matt Drengler. April 29, 12:10 PM ET. Save your spot.

• A new podcast studio, Light Knot Studios, is copying the names and designs of 75 successful history podcasts to confuse listeners and attract ad revenue. It was first spotted over the weekend by Dirk from the History of the Germans podcast (using PodSEO, who advertised with us a few weeks ago). He told Podnews: "We all have competition. But, if listeners look for History of the Germans and they stumble on this [visual copy] instead, they'll be confused and will think it's not worth listening to. We're all struggling hard for the first listen. It's very irritating."
  • Legally, this is a little like Coming to America's "McDowell's restaurant". The law against passing off - “stopping one trader from misrepresenting goods and services as being the goods and services of another” - isn't, actually, something that copyright or trademark law covers. Since the audio hasn't been copied, it might be tricky to convince individual podcast platforms to take action. (Our advice about how to report a pirated podcast isn't going to be wholly useful for this).
  • The company is based in New York State. The owner of Light Knot Studios is LinkedByte Corporation, which also runs an audiobook app brand Fable FM and a book summariser Winkist. They're all run by Ibnul Jaif Farabi, and uses a post office box in East Harlem, NYC. Farabi has commented on Reddit (using an account that has been used by him since late December). He's unrepentant: "F(-) you lot because you don't like competitions. If your entire business model is being threatened by one person using AI agents, then you need to adapt. Otherwise, perish."
  • The company hosts its podcasts on RSS.com, and used RSS's PAID platform to earn revenue from ads inside the podcasts. Light Knot publishes short, daily podcasts produced by AI, to maximise the revenue it can earn; by default, there are two ads placed as preroll, and two ads placed as postroll. RSS keeps 30% of the revenue. RSS appears to have turned off monetisation, but surprisingly the company has not removed most of the podcasts. A spokesperson told us, in a statement: