What to do about a confirmed match

Last updated July 30, 2026

We found something that looks like a copy of your work. This page explains what to do next, in plain language: how to check the match is real, who to send a complaint to, what that complaint has to contain, and where the major platforms actually take them.

1. Check the match is really a copy

Do this first, every time. Our detection is probabilistic — we tell you two recordings sound alike, or two texts share wording, and that's genuinely useful, but it isn't a judgment about who owns what or whether anyone did anything wrong.

Open the match in your dashboard, listen to or read the flagged section, and rule out the ordinary explanations before you treat it as theft:

• It's you. Your own back catalogue, a re-master, a clips account you run, a syndication partner, a "best of" re-release, or the same episode on a second host.
• It's licensed. Someone you (or your publisher, network or agency) gave permission to — including permissions granted before you started using AuthentiCast.
• It's a legitimate use. Short quotation, review, commentary, criticism, news reporting, parody or teaching can be lawful without permission. In the US this is fair use; other countries have narrower equivalents. Length alone doesn't decide it.
• It's a title coincidence. Our YouTube and TikTok sweep matches titles and descriptions, not the audio itself. A show called "True Crime Weekly" will surface other shows with similar names that have nothing to do with you.
• It's public domain or a shared source. Two audiobooks of the same out-of-copyright novel legitimately share a script.

Once you're satisfied it's an unauthorised copy, save your evidence before you file: the URL, a screenshot or screen recording, the upload date, the account name, and — if it might disappear — a downloaded copy for your own records. Platforms remove content, and your evidence goes with it.

2. Work out who to complain to

You almost never complain to the person who took your work. You complain to whoever is hosting or distributing it, because they're the one who can remove it — and, under US law, the one with a legal incentive to act promptly.

• On a big platform (YouTube, TikTok, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, a marketplace) — use that platform's copyright form. It's faster and better-staffed than anything else, and it's the route in section 4.
• On someone's own website — look for a "DMCA", "Copyright" or "Legal" link in the footer, which usually names a designated agent and an address. If there isn't one, US-registered services are listed in the Copyright Office's DMCA Designated Agent Directory.
• If the site itself ignores you — go one level up, to the company hosting it or serving its files, and use their abuse or copyright contact. Hosts are generally far more responsive than the sites they host.
• If it's a podcast on many apps at once — the copy is almost certainly coming from one RSS feed at one host. Getting that feed taken down removes it everywhere downstream, which is usually less work than filing with each app.

3. What a takedown notice has to contain

Most platform forms simply ask for these in their own words, so you often don't need to write a letter at all. But if you're emailing a host directly, a notice under the US DMCA needs all six of the following, and a notice missing one can be ignored as invalid:

1. Your physical or electronic signature.
2. Identification of the work being infringed — your episode, audiobook or manuscript, with a link to your legitimate version if you have one.
3. Identification of the infringing material, specific enough for them to find it. A direct URL to the exact video, episode or listing — not just "your site".
4. Your contact details — name, address, phone, email.
5. A statement that you have a good-faith belief the use isn't authorised by you, your agent, or the law.
6. A statement that the information is accurate, and — under penalty of perjury — that you're the rights holder or authorised to act for them.

Keep it factual and specific. One notice can usually cover several URLs from the same platform; don't bundle unrelated platforms into one complaint.

The DMCA is US law, and it's the format the large platforms are built around, so it's the practical default even from outside the US. Elsewhere the destination is the same but the label differs — in the EU, the Digital Services Act gives every large platform an equivalent notice-and-action route, and your national copyright office or a local lawyer can point you at it.

4. Where the major platforms take complaints

These are the official copyright routes, linked directly. Use the platform's own form wherever one exists — a complaint sent anywhere else on these companies is likely to be redirected back to it, costing you days.

• YouTube youtube.com/copyright_complaint_form Signed-in webform for video, plus channel art and other non-video content. YouTube's own walkthrough of the process is at support.google.com/youtube/answer/2807622. If you have a lot of recurring reuse, ask them about Content ID rather than filing one notice at a time.
• TikTok tiktok.com/legal/report/Copyright Copyright report form for user-generated content. You don't need a TikTok account to file.
• Spotify spotify.com/legal/intellectual-property-policy Their intellectual property policy contains the infringement notice form. File one form per content type — a podcast complaint and a music complaint go in separately.
• Apple Podcasts apple.com/legal/intellectual-property/dispute-forms/podcasts Podcast dispute form, up to 50 podcasts per submission. Apple contacts the provider and asks them to resolve it with you directly, so expect a slower path than a straight removal.
• Amazon (audiobooks, ebooks, print listings) amazon.com/report/infringement For rights holders and their agents, covering copyright and trademark on anything listed for sale. This is the right route for a pirated audiobook, ebook or print edition being sold.
• Anyone else — a website, file host, or forum copyright.gov/dmca-directory Look up the service's registered copyright agent, then send the six-part notice from section 3 to that address.

Platforms change these forms from time to time. If a link here is dead, search for the platform's name plus "copyright complaint" and use the result on their own domain — and please tell us so we can fix it.

5. Printed and physical copies

Being straight with you: this section is thinner than the rest, and the honest reason is that AuthentiCast only looks at material published online. We don't monitor print runs, physical distribution, or copies sold offline, and we can't tell you a printed edition exists. What follows is general orientation, not a process we can run for you.

In practice, most "printed" piracy that anyone can actually act on is being sold online, which makes it the same job as section 4:

• Sold on a marketplace — use that marketplace's IP form (Amazon's is linked above; eBay, Etsy and the rest each have an equivalent, usually under "intellectual property" or "report a listing"). Include the listing URL and the seller name, and buy a copy first if you can afford to — a physical copy in hand is much stronger evidence than a screenshot.
• Made through a print-on-demand service — the printer is the distributor here, and they take copyright complaints like any other host. Their copyright contact is usually in the site footer.
• A genuine counterfeit operation — printed at scale, fake covers, your name or imprint on the cover — is a different and more serious problem than a single pirated file. It usually involves trademark as well as copyright, and it's where a lawyer stops being optional. Customs authorities in some countries can be asked to block infringing imports, but that needs registered rights and legal help to set up.
• If you have a publisher — tell them before you do anything else. Your contract may well oblige them to handle enforcement, and they may already have counsel and a relationship with the retailer.

Either way, keep the same evidence you'd keep online: listing URLs, seller names, photographs, the ISBN if there is one, and receipts for anything you bought.

6. What happens after you file

• Timing. Large platforms typically act in days, not hours. Individual site hosts vary from same-day to never.
• The other side can push back. Whoever posted it may file a counter-notice saying the use was lawful. On US platforms that often means the material goes back up unless you take the dispute further, which is a legal step, not a form.
• Repeat infringers. Most platforms escalate against accounts that collect multiple valid complaints. If the same account keeps reposting your work, say so in each notice — the pattern matters more than any single upload.
• Keep watching. Removed content reappears, often on a different account or platform. Your AuthentiCast catalogue keeps checking, and reposts that come back should surface again.
• Mark it up in your dashboard. Confirming a real match, or dismissing a false one, keeps your own match history meaningful.

7. What AuthentiCast does and doesn't do

We find copies and hand you the evidence: what matched, how strongly, where it is, and when we saw it. That's deliberately where we stop.

As set out in Section 5 of our Terms of Service, AuthentiCast does not make legal judgments, send takedown notices, or contact third parties on your behalf. Any action you take based on a match — a DMCA notice, a message to a platform, legal action — is your decision and your responsibility, and you're responsible for independently verifying a match before acting on it. Our matching is probabilistic and we don't guarantee that every match is genuine or that we'll catch every copy.

That boundary is on purpose. Filing a takedown is an assertion about rights that only you can make, and a service that fired them off automatically would eventually make one on your behalf that you'd never have made.

Questions

If you're stuck on which route applies to your situation, email [email protected] and we'll point you at the right form. We can't advise you on the legal merits, and we won't file on your behalf — but we can help you read your own match data and get the evidence together.