Orphaned works

[lauramcewan]

 Hello!

So I've recently and with relief and happiness fallen back into reading fanfic, itching to finish a podfic I began a long while ago before some real-life issue intervened and knocked me completely out of my fannish playground, and I've found a fic that I want to record. 

My issue is, the story has been orphaned and the author is now listed as Orphan_Works by AO3. It's from 2014, and in several chapter headers the original author lists her personal email address. It includes her name, like "lauramcewan@email.com" (not my real one.)

So: Should I still seek permission, if it's been orphaned? If I email that addy and get a "this email doesn't exist" and/or she doesn't reply after a week or so, can I assume permission? 

These are the questions that keep me up at night. 

I am so out of practice. I hope I can remember how to do all this. :)

Comments

[lauramcewan]

thank you, that's the way I was leaning but it seems sometimes I miss certain points that don't occur to me in situations like this, so wanted to get another take. Thank you very much!