Question Regarding Podficcing Protocol

[reena_jenkins]

 Okay, so. For all that I've been dedicating my free end-of-summer hours to podficcing my favorite bookmarked fics, I'm still relatively unsure of a lot of procedure and protocol. 

 Scenario: Let's say you've found this really fantastically amazing story, in an archive or through the wayback machine or in an old old newsletter. This story has it all, in a fandom you love that's kinda under-represented, and you already know the perfect song to preface it with. However, the author is no longer online, or has changed her name/account/mortality status/residence to Amish Country, or it's been seven years since the story was written and the contact e-mail provided with the story is no longer viable. What do you do? Is that story off-limits to podficcing? Should you go ahead and record it anyway? Should you try contacting the author, wait a month for any kind of response, and then go for it? 'Cause, well, there's a few longish fics that I've got bookmarked that fit the above, and I don't know what to do with them.... Please and thank you for any assistance provided! (Also, I wasn't entirely sure what to tag this as....)

Comments

[paraka]

Heh, that is a good question. At the moment, there isn't really a protocol in place that extends to podfic fandom as a whole (although, really, it's not like it's really possible to police or enforce protocols). Mostly it comes down to the podficer choice/comfort level.

That's in general. Personally, I feel that you should go for it. Do try and contact the author, but yeah, if in, like, a month you don't hear anything, I think it should be ok for you to go ahead and podfic it. Author's permission is nice when you can get it, but I don't feel it should be a carved-in-stone rule, if only because of these situations.

I kind of feel like there should be a fannish public domain. In the copyright world, once an creator is dead they get so many years of copyright status before it becomes a free for all to whomever wants to use the material. In RL, it's like 25-75 years after they die (depending on your country's laws) but this is the internet so I, personally, feel that anything that has been out there for 5+ years after fannish death (ie. they've left the internet for some reason or another, this in no way implies that the creator is actually dead [although sometimes that is the case]).

Too, there's some level of judgement involved, especially with Wayback Machine. Like, if the author intentionally pulled it off the internet and you know they don't want anyone to see it anymore, I would probably stay away. But if it's something like, they used to have a Geocities account but now it's gone because Yahoo sucks, I think that's fair.

I mean, I kind of think I'll be in fandom for life, just because that's how I am. But if that's not the case, and 10 years from now someone finds the fannish things I've made and still finds value in it? That's completely awesome to me, and I'd be happy to let them do with it what they will. :)

Have you checked out podficmeta? They've had a couple discussions about permission:
-Is it real or is it Memorex?
-Should readers get permission to make podfic?
-Discussion elsewhere: poll by juice
-Author Permission Question
-Author Control (After Initial Permission)

[reena_jenkins]

Hey, thank you for the further references/research/reading links. What you said all kinda goes along with my own feelings anyway, so, hooray for validation!

[cookiemom6067.livejournal.com]

I just don't feel comfortable recording something without the author's explicit approval. Well, recording for posting. Record whatever you want for your own use.

[paraka]

This isn't an attack on you, cookiemom6067, I'm just using your comment as a jumping off point to talk about this. So, that said, I totally respect your choice to not record anything without author's permission, but I really, really, really hate the idea of it as a community rule. I mean, it's all well and good if you're (general you here and from now on) in SGA or Sherlock or SPN because those are still active communities. If you can't get a hold of one author for permission, there are so many others that you can get a hold of so you can just move on.

But, I'll use my roommate, kronos999, as an example. A lot of her fandoms, and the ones she most wants to podfic in, reached their peaks before she was even born. I mean, the email address I was using 6 years ago when I first got into fandom is no longer valid, but 40 years ago? What kind of validity can you expect from whatever contact info you have? A lot of that fic was actually written in zines so nothing more then a name/pen name was given. And like, there are a couple cases where she knows for a fact that the author is dead.

And there's still interest in older fanfic. People discover older fandoms all the time. Look at how popular Due South is, and it's been around for more than 15 years. The new rebooted Star Trek movie is suddenly bringing new people into the original series so older fics there have a whole new audience.

And, like, the internet is awesome. But as an archive? It kinda sucks. Places that seem stable can just disappear into the night. Look at what happened to Geocities. One day, that's likely to happen to Live Journal. So much of our fannish history is here on LJ and a lot of people drift away from fandom, happily leaving their fics up for anyone to read, but if their archive is taken away, those stories are suddenly lost. Not because the author wanted them gone but just due to the changing nature of the internet.

Podficing a fic without permission is like archiving without permission. But most of the reasons for the no-archiving-without-permission rule start to erode when someone leaves their stuff up and abandons it. I hate the idea of losing fannish history, hate it. So I actually think we need to rethink the whole archiving "rule" in certain cases. Which is why I like the idea of a fannish public domain so much.

Fanfic writers go and use other people's creative works all the time without permission, it's slightly hypocritical of them to demand more than what they give. However fandom has a much more cosy atmosphere and the power structures are much more even, so it's practical for us to talk to the author first. Really, the suggestion to get author's permission is mostly there to 1) share the squee and 2) to keep the neighbours happy. However, if the author is gone from the internet those reasons are now moot. They obviously have lost a lot of interest in their works (I'm not saying they don't care but they're not actively caring) so the chances of them getting pissed off over the podfic are really slim.

[cookiemom6067.livejournal.com]

I can respect that -

I actually have trouble imagining that anyone with an old fic out there would mind at all.

Podfic is such a new branch of fandom that there's a lot of consensus building going on.

For every fanwork, there is a sense of what is fair use, and there are also people that will take it a step (or several) too far. For example, there was a jerk selling someone else's (actually more than one someone) posted pics from the Vancouver Salute to Supernatural convention. Not to mention the recent sturm und drang here on LJ about Twitter and FB reposting.

Anyone that creates fanwork has their feet planted firmly in a grey area to begin with. My own husband has been heard to wonder how we can get away with writing fic!

My own experience has been that authors are extremely flattered that someone wants to podic their work. The only flat turndown I ever had was from someone that said another podficcer had dibs (another discussion all together - see pandarus 's journal).

[reena_jenkins]

I mean, I would never record something deliberately against the author's explicit desire to remain un-podficced, but....and here's the part where I whine like a 3-year old for ice cream....I wanna make it! :-) See, there's this one story I found on a Smallville archive, written in 2003. It's, you know, completely AU by now, but it's a really intriguing premise for alternate Season 3. And, well, the author's pretty incommunicado. The archive's people in charge haven't responded, and according to yahoo, the contact email provided doesn't exist to send email to. And it's such a good story....whines some more...

[reena_jenkins]

Also, I really like the idea of the podficcing community as some kind of 'undercover archivists'. Recording and restoring fic from the clutches of entropy, one elderly fandom at a time.... ;-D

[pandarus.livejournal.com]

Who's it by, out of interest?

[reena_jenkins]

It's "Getting to Know You", by Ingrid....

[princess2000204.livejournal.com]

I would say go for.

If every means of communication is completely unavailable and you can't get in touch with them at all.

[malnpudl.livejournal.com]

My own views are pretty much with paraka's.

Additional thought: If there's still an LJ newsletter or noticeboard or even a major mailing list for the fandom in question, you could try using that to ask if anyone can put you in touch with the author for this purpose. Sometimes individuals keep in touch even after fannish pursuits have been left behind.

[reena_jenkins]

Oooh, good idea! I totally hadn't thought of that. Thank you!

[revolutionaryjo.livejournal.com]

Chiming in to agree with mostly what paraka has already said. If there was a good faith effort made to contact the author, and the author hasn't intentionally removed their work from the internet, then I would go for it. I would probably also preface the recording and the posting by asking the author to get in touch with you if they would like to cease the distribution of the podfic at any point. Just to be sure.

[paraka]

I would probably also preface the recording and the posting by asking the author to get in touch with you if they would like to cease the distribution of the podfic at any point. Just to be sure.
Personal opinions here, but it seems a little much to make it part of the actual recording (as a listener, I'd probably find it annoying) but I completely approve of the idea of adding it to your announcement post.

[cookiemom6067.livejournal.com]

I'd say that's fair.

[celtic-forest.livejournal.com]

I was just about to write exactly what revolutionaryjosaid, so I'll just add my agreement.

[risha]

I'm with paraka, malnpudl, revolutionaryjo, and celtic_forest.

Authorial permission is all well and good, but if something has been abandoned to the mercy of the internet... I disapprove in general of people deliberately removing their works from public consumption, though I'd never argue that they can't. But if that's not what's happened, it doesn't make sense to me to have something great eventually disappear forever just because the author doesn't have a functional email address anymore.

[lian-li.livejournal.com]

Another thought -- what if the author is inarguably still around, but doesn't respond to messages? I'm really loathe to accost them in their personal journal... :(

[cookiemom6067.livejournal.com]

That's where I would take it as an implicit "no."

Again - if I really like it and really want to do it, I would do it, I just wouldn't post it.

I have had the situation happen (before I ever podficced, when I was fairly new to online fandom) where an author made a decision to stop writing explicit slash. I really hated that, because I really liked her stories, had seen them rec'd, and so forth. While she was free to take it down, anyone could have saved a copy on their computer. Privately archiving, in other words.

[lian-li.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get what you mean. Sigh. It's just, it isn't even for me -- it's meant as a gift. Which makes this more urgent in a way, because if this was only about my own enjoyment, hey, no big deal. *frets*

[pandarus.livejournal.com]

Dude, I'd TOTALLY accost them in their personal journal.

There are lots of reasons why people might not respond to messages - if you know they're there, and they've got a journal you can comment on, I'd TOTALLY do it that way.

[lian-li.livejournal.com]

I...may try this desperate measure! ^^;

[ellex42.livejournal.com]

I usually go by the rule (in RL, I mean, as I haven't managed to fit podficcing into my hobbies, yet) that it never hurts to ask. All they can do is say no.

[princess2000204.livejournal.com]

I completely agree!

[princess2000204.livejournal.com]

My general belief, so far, in regards to podficing.

If it is posted on the internet and has been generally abandoned, as in the author is no longer active in fandom and their is no means of communication, then I say record it. Just make a note in posting the MP3/MP4 that you don't have author's permission.

I'm all for asking the author's permission. I just know I wouldn't want my stuff podficed without me even being aware of it. You would like to know what is going on with your own personal works.