What to do with UNsuccessful auditions to a free project?

Question

What are my ethical responsibilities with unsuccessful audition recordings to a free-culture production like Lunatics? Ought I to destroy them? Save them for later, but NOT include them in the project sources? Or just put them in there for all to find?
 

Successful audition recordings have been used in the project already. But I'm uncertain what factors to consider with respect to the unsuccessful ones.

Potential issues here:

• Actor reputations
• Trust-relationship with actors (What's their typical expectation with audition recordings? Will this inhibit future casting calls?)
• Personality rights -- do I even have the right to say who auditioned (thus associated the name with my project, even if we didn't select them)?
• Integrity of the project as "open source"
• Educational/insight value of understanding the directing and casting process
• A pool of talent for future parts

Some of the auditions were extremely good. Some missed simply because the competition was stiff. Some because they just weren't in the right vocal range. Some because they didn't seem to understand the part. Others were just very bad actors who need to go back and get acting lessons -- or like me, they're amateurs who aren't really actors at all, but just want to be involved in the project.

I want to do the right thing here, not just "stay within the law". I'm willing to consider ethical, legal, and pragmatic considerations. I feel conflicted about what's "right", though, and I'd like to hear some opinions from others.

Answer 1

ooh, difficult one. Not knowing anything about the project, one question has to be asked and that's if there was any indication given to the actors (any of them) as to what might happen to the auditions?

If none such were given then I suppose the "open source" thing to do would be to add them in to the overall package.

But it might be easiest to simply go with what feels right to you.

Chocolate kettle here I'm afraid.

Comments

@blinddrew The project has clear notices that it's By-SA licensed. There are a number of places where it says that by contributing, you're agreeing to the By-SA license.

HOWEVER, most of the actors were contacted through casting sites or by email, and the licensing text may not have been as clearly stated (although the "Casting Call" to which all were directed does include some language to this effect)

Actor friends of mine have said they believe the auditions are a "confidential private meeting" and that, unless the actor has signed a release, I cannot legally publish them, therefore they cannot be in the source code.

I think there's a conflict between two different "standard industry practices" here!

In the future, I'm going to have to set up a more clear-cut release process.

Personality rights may also be at issue here -- I will probably need to include extra language for that.