I’ve never actually made a podfic before, so I’m not entirely sure what proper etiquette and protocol is in general…

I imagine you should get permission from the original author first though, right? Or is that not a hard and fast rule as long as you link and credit their work properly?

Now, to make things a smidge more complicated, the fic I’d like to pod was written by “orphan_account” and was completed almost 10 years ago now.

From what I understand, when an account is orphaned, it means that the author no longer wants their name to be associated with it, but still want to keep it up for others to enjoy.

If there’s no one to ask, or even to credit – other than linking back to the original work – would it still be okay for me to use it to create a podfic?

One more question…

So, I put the fic link into the Wayback Machine, and was able to see what the page looked like prior to the author orphaning their account. Because of that, I was able to see their (now deleted) username.

If I were to create a podfic with this work, I shouldn’t credit the author with their original, now deleted username, right? It’s not because I don’t want to, but if that person didn’t want their name associated with that work any longer, than crediting them then where I otherwise should not have been able to do so would be considered… bad, right?

Sorry, I just wanted to be sure to dot my i’s and cross my t’s, so to speak, before pursuing this.

Whether you have the answer or not (if there even IS a singular solid answer to this), I’d be grateful if you, having read this far, would weigh in on it. I figure the more opinions I have the clearer my decision will be to make.

Thanks so much!