Podcast rejected from iTunes TWICE!

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Podcast rejected from iTunes TWICE!

Hi,

I'm having issues, and lack of response from Apple/iTunes, in regards to a podcast feed rejection, and I'm hoping someone else can help.

I'm not a newbie at this, so far I've either published or managed, or both, at least 4 podcast feeds to date, but this is the first time one has been rejected.

The feed(s) http://feeds.feedburner.com/60hzsessions and http://feeds.feedburner.com/the60hzsessions have both been rejected, but no reason has been stated.

The first feed is actually being used by TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, and other directories with no issues. Both have been checked technically to meet requirements, yet they've been rejected.

The owner, Artful, is an established multi-award winning music producer (formerly Artful Dodger), and also has music listed in the iTunes store.

Several emails to iTunes has fallen on deaf ears, and at this stage we've ceased mentioning "coming soon to iTunes" during the live syndicated radio show.

Any ideas anyone?

Posted on May 21, 2015 2:04 PM

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Answer 1

May 21, 2015 2:59 PM in response to mattauckland

The feed appears to be fine. I would imagine that the concern is that you appear to be using commercially issued music recordings. Doing this without the full written permission of both the record company and the artists is a breach both of copyright and the Terms of Use and will get you rejected.

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Answer 2

May 21, 2015 4:37 PM in response to mattauckland

Apple also has a policy of delisting shows that have profanity in the show title or episode titles. I can't give you an exact list of phrases they don't like but it extends beyond the usual "four-letter words," so if you've got anything questionable there, you should change it.

And when you e-mail them, make sure you're e-mailing podcasts(at)apple(dot)com.

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Answer 3

mattauckland Author

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May 21, 2015 5:20 PM in response to shawnogordo

Thanks for the response, but no, it's all clean.

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Answer 4

mattauckland Author

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May 21, 2015 5:36 PM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Yes I also considered that, as I noticed another thread you replied on, but 2 other podcast feeds I've been involved in also contain DJ Mixes in the form of podcast editions of a radio show.

Further to that effect, not only are there a wealth of other podcasts on iTunes in the same style, A State of Trance, Above & Beyond, and Hardwell to name a few, but also in the second podcast feed I purposely changed the title to omit Artful (just incase that was the reason), and the description text to omit and mention of DJ Mix or similar.

I find it very frustrating, and incredibly poor customer support that Apple doesn't even explain the reason for rejection, considering they must have reviewed the feed to reject it. I mean it takes very little effort to give a reason, even in the automatically generated notification email that they send out.

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Answer 5

May 21, 2015 11:34 PM in response to mattauckland

I agree that it would be helpful if they explained the reason - they could have a handful of boilerplate explanations as there are only a handful of possible reasons. There are any number of 'DJ mix' podcasts around, but they get removed when they are spotted. I can't say for certain that this is the reason you've been rejected, but it's quite common for this sort of thing to happen. You aren't supposed to be using copyright material without clearance.

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