[Air-L] Kefuffle researching fanfic/fandom

[Joseph Reagle]

On Wednesday 02 September 2009, Katy E. Pearce wrote:
> a survey of various LiveJournal fanfiction/fandom groups. Unfortunately:
> 1. Despite repeatedly mentioning his association with BU, it appears he
> never got IRB approval.
> 2. This research wasn't even for a project at BU; it was for a privately
> published book. (A book titled, incidentally, Rule 34: What Netporn Teaches
> Us About The Brain. I am not making this up.)

This prompts a question aside from this disastrous case: What IRB obligations does one have if one's research is not funded by an institution and one makes no claims of affiliation or support for that research? (Obviously, not the case in this instance.) It could still be bad research/ethics, but I believe the IRB was originally intended to apply to Federally funded research, now typically applies to all (non-humanities/journalistic) research at a Federally funded institution, but does it touch upon even loose affiliations?