For Anyone Interested We Have Kicked Up A Discord Server For Folks To Talk About The Show, Show Off Some

How you feel when you're Truly Deeply Evil but you find an indie audio drama/podcast community that is kind and welcoming and gets your vibe and you just want everyone to get puppy kisses and shit.

the world is a better place with trans women in it

I love you audio drama

I love you podcasts

I love you audio based storytelling

Happy Trans Day of Visibility!

To our wonderful trans friends: we see you, we value you, we appreciate you.

**Casting Call!** Tales from the Dead West: Nearer Hell Than Purgatory

Unpaid hobby project.

@dead-west-podcast is a horror/weird western fiction podcast. Tales from the Dead West are stand-alone, found footage style stories by other writers.

This episode, Nearer Hell Than Purgatory, is written and directed by @ash-alder.

The call will be open from January 13 to 8am pacific, January 27.

Casting for: - 1 character using she/her pronouns with any American accent

- 1 character using he/him pronouns with any accent from anywhere that reads "country" or "folksy"

shorturl.at/fhVel

Questions? Message here, or @dead-west-podcast or on Discord to ash.alder

Paper Horse, acrylic painting by Jason Limon

This artist on Instagram

be careful with what series you watch/read during emotional points in your life because they will forever contain a ghost of your past self within it now

its so scary to put yourself out there but a SINGLE message saying "hi i loved what you made it touched me in some way" makes it all worth it 10000%

Mood Board for the Dead West Podcast

PSA for podcast and audio drama creators:

If you publish a new episode of your show and it never shows up on Spotify, *do not panic*.

If you're using any kind of background music, it might've gotten flagged by their copyrighted content scanner. If it has, they do not notify you directly about it. Instead, they will notify your podcast hosting platform (i.e. Buzzsprout, Acast, Podbean, etc.)

If your new episode doesn't show up on Spotify within an hour or two (as it normally does), here's what you should do:

Create a video of your podcast and upload it privately to YouTube.

Check the 'Restrictions' column of the Content page in YouTube Studio. If the video you uploaded has 'Copyright' in this column, something was flagged and this is the problem. (In my experience, YouTube and Spotify's scanners are aligned).

Hover over where it says 'Copyright' and click the 'See Details' button. This will tell you what got flagged.

Confirm whether this content was legitimately flagged or not. If it was (meaning you can't prove that you have rights to use the music), it's time to replace the track and reupload your episode. (You'll still want to do the following steps after you do that). If wasn't, it's time to document why the flagging was in error. In Metropolis' case, we use a lot of pre-1924 music that is in the public domain per Title II of the US Music Modernization Act of 2018. But rights holders are notorious for not removing things that have aged into the public domain from their claims list. That means we have clear rights to use the music (as does anybody: again, public domain!), but we still have to go through the appeals process.

Contact your hosting provider to get the notice email from Spotify Content Protection. You need to ask their support team if they've received an email for your show from Spotify with a Subject line of "Possibly Infringing - Notification Warning - Claim xxx - ref:_xxx". It usually takes about 30 minutes to an hour for them to receive that notification from when the episode was uploaded. Within the email, there's a unique link to appeal the decision. Note that you only get five days to appeal - procrastination is definitely not your friend here!

Use the Appeal Link from the Email to file an Appeal Notice If you click the link, it will take you to a form to appeal the decision not to post the episode. This is where you need to present your case by either that you've replaced the music in question, or that you have a right to use it. If it's the latter - make sure you present the case as thoroughly and completely as possible (with links and references). (You'll also want to confirm that the track that YouTube spotted is the one that Spotify flagged.)

From my experience, Spotify will usually respond 24-36 hours.

If you took the right steps, it'll usually be a short note that they've published the episode and you're in the clear.

Cheers, and happy creating!