Our tax dollars at work with over-paid over-pensioned government workers trawling YouTube all day long, providing no benefit to anyone other than boosting testosterone levels at the FAA.
Yeah, because conservatives love the expansion of government oversight... Both political ideologies, liberal and conservative, want to control you - so lets not pretend that isn't the case.
>Yeah, because conservatives love the expansion of government oversight...
being an immigrant with no vested interests with any political movement, during the 15 years here i found the conservatives' alleged "anti-government stance" is among the biggest and most blatant propaganda lies. They are trigger happy to expand the government power and reach whenever it helps to squash the "bigger evil" - people's liberties and freedoms (with the white people's gun rights being the only exception). Voter ID laws for example. Birth control. AETA laws. Or just google ALEC ...
The axe-grinding here is, e.g. "over-pensioned" and "providing no benefit to anyone". This is awkward language, I'm not sure it contributes.
If the poster had said, "The FAA is wasteful and does not need to exist" that's perhaps an interesting topic that could be discussed. "They're over-paid over-pensioned trawling YouTube all day" doesn't really lend itself to a useful discussion IMO.
That's nonsense. What if I took a copy of footage shot by the drone operator and used it in a commercial for my business? Are they going to shut him down for something he had no control over at all?
Shouldn't you get in trouble for taking footage shot by someone else without permission?
Assuming you mean you bought the shot footage, then the drone operator is responsible for getting the right clearance to commercially film with a drone and _you_ would probably be rightfully angry that the footage you bought was not "licensed" properly.
Not necessarily. The footage could have been released to the public domain or under a license that permits my use. And even if I was using it without proper license, why should the drone operator carry the burden of going after me if he doesn't feel like it?
They aren't actually banning the videos, despite eye catching headlines. They're saying that the videos, if monetized, make the drone flying a commercial activity, which is banned.
The FAA doesn't say the videos are against the law, or even that the flight is against the law - they're saying the flight must comply with commercial flight regulations if the video it takes is monetized.
"Drones taking monetized videos are commercial flights, according to FAA"
That's a rather unfair characterization. The FAA keeps very tight reins on commercial operations, with damn good reason. Why do you think commercial flight is so safe?
Is anyone familiar with the concept of a revolving door? The FAA isn't magically immune to this process and is in fact a good case study of the phenomenon.
But continue to downvote comments not because they aren't true but because they challenge your mistakenly held beliefs.
> They're saying that the videos, if monetized, make the drone flying a commercial activity, which is banned.
Strange, I didn't know there was any non-commercial component to the first amendment. How did newpapers and newcasts, which are also commercial activities, escape such issues?
It isn't banning posting videos of flying drones, it means that if you make money off posting a video of flying a drone, it means you are operating a drone commercially, which is not allowed. It has nothing to do with speech, it is about unlawfully flying.
> It has nothing to do with speech, it is about unlawfully flying
The act of flying a plane becomes retroactively illegal because money was made from a video? Can we be adults and admit this has nothing to do with lawfulness and everything to do with money?
Of course it has to do with money, we are talking about whether or not it is a commercial activity, which is exactly what determines whether or not the flight is in violation of the FARs. I'm not sure what your point is.
Well... it doesn't. This strikes me as a pretty unconvincing definition of "commercial activity" and obviously implicates free speech rights. (That said, if the operators facing trouble are most often getting ratted out to the FAA by business competitors, that does suggest that there's commercial activity somewhere in the background.) My read is that the agency is just trying to hold would-be drone operators at bay until it actually has clear legal authority to regulate (which is in progress).
If the revenue generated from an act isn't enough to even qualify a passing mention on your tax return, I don't see how it could be considered commercial.
It's like if someone saw me pick up a quarter on the sidewalk and cited me for operating a business without a permit and being improperly zoned.
>and cited me for operating a business without a permit and being improperly zoned.
that wouldn't be that bad considering the alternative charge of say "money laundering" (if, say, you puff off some grains of sand from the quarter), "illegal deposit acceptance" or other money transfer/handling crimes.
What if an Arab buys the lemonade and is later charged with Terrorism, couldn't the girl with the lemonade stand be charged with material support? Isn't the parent responsible for the income taxes on income earned by minors?
> In Coralville, Iowa police shut down 4-year-old Abigail Krstinger’s lemonade stand after it had been up for half an hour. Dustin Krustinger told reporters that his daughter was selling lemonade at 25 cents a cup during the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Race Across Iowa (or RAGBRAI), and couldn’t have made more than five dollars, adding “If the line is drawn to the point where a four-year-old eight blocks away can’t sell a couple glasses of lemonade for 25 cents, than I think the line has been drawn at the wrong spot.”
That's a nice line, but it's always more complicated than that. Do the actions of one town's government speak for the entire county, state, or country? Do the actions of the federal government speak for each state, county, or town?
When numerous examples can be found of abuse by government at the township, county, state, and federal levels what else can you say besides the parent comment? Is your defense the usual 'few bad apples' argument because at this point the orchard is rotten and crawling with worms.
It would be humorous except non-government, non-corporate individuals have no way to redress grievances.
You have several ways to address grievances. You can speak to your local representatives. Write to the local press. Contact your State and National Representatives, and then contact them again when a staffer takes your call the first time. Write letters, e-mails, radio ads, television interviews, poems, songs, plant trees in the shape of your own face, you can use the power of hate on 4chan or the hug of death from Reddit.
You can protest, is what I'm saying.
I'm not saying that a few bad apples spoil the bunch. What I said was that it isn't true that all parts of every government office are abusive. I implied that issues in Idaho's state government aren't the same as those in Miami's Precinct Alderman's offices, and those are different than those in Washington, D.C.
Do you have a designated freespeech zone for me to use?
Where shall I gather the money to run radio ads? You actually believe planting trees is a way to address grievances?
My state and national representative will not care one iota for my opinion if it isn't attached to either A: a large check or B: a large constituency.
I wrote there are numerous examples of government abuse on all levels, how is it then not true that every government office is abusive? Yes, perhaps this particular ranger in this particular state park is clean as a whistle -- in our orchard of rotten apples there are still a few good ones if you pick through the garbage.
Freespeech zone: nope, not sure how that's relevant.
Radio: any type of fundraising that you believe would work, or try to get free air time on local broadcasts or regional programs. It helps if you have an interesting topic to talk about.
Trees: If it gets your message across, yes. It would be a good news story.
"My state and national representative will not care one iota for my opinion if it isn't attached to either A: a large check or B: a large constituency."
Have you ever tried? This is the kind of statement made by someone who has nothing but second- and third-hand knowledge of the process, usually garnered through biased news organizations (they all are).
My experience has been that very few citizens are involved in politics as lobbying goes. I'm convinced that if every private citizen got as involved in the actual process as they are in complaining, actual, paid lobbyists would be driven out of business. They only speak for us because we do not speak for ourselves.
I have successfully lobbied my state representative. I wrote to the local paper, I arranged an interview with compelling stories for local television. I made a nuisance out of myself until I got airtime on local radio stations. I made such a stink that my federal representatives even called me to discuss the issue and ask for my thoughts (albeit not too much in depth). I spoke for myself, because the people who were doing it full time didn't have my best interests at heart.
But, I felt passionately about the topic. You're right, it's easier with money, but you can also spend time and energy for nearly as good of a return. Not everyone has these things to spare, and I appreciate that (I was lobbying against cuts to low-income early childhood in my area; the exact kind of people who have neither time, money, nor energy to fight the fight). But, if it's something you truly feel is right, just, and good, you'll figure out how to make it happen.
Finally, to bring it back around to the original argument; it may be that several government entities are abusive. It is probably true that a majority are corrupt. But to say that ---all-- government is abusive or corrupt is just ridiculous. Those type of arguments add nothing to the conversation other than noise.
What I'm saying is that you cannot, across all sectors, in all areas, in all ways, claim that government, every piece of it, has jumped the proverbial shark.
Governments have the legal right to use force against individuals. Individuals, and individuals that band together into organizations, have no such right.
Both of which rely on and aggressively use (via bribes) the government's legal right to use force against individuals as their means to implement their policies.
First, there aren't many large scale bands of individuals that don't also obtain special privileges from the government (aka incorporating).
Second, while these organizations theoretically "have no such right", there are plenty of instances where they do directly wield force yet escape justice, abuse the force-wielding functions of government to harm people, or use their concentrated power to buy off parts of the government (principle agent problem). Insisting that these are ultimately government problems because a perfect minimalist government would not succumb is highly wishful thinking. It's falling into the classic political trap of addressing one half the problem while drumming up full-speed-ahead support for the other half.
It's rather difficult to defend yourself against an organization that can use it's wealth and influence to leverage the government to make it a crime to fight against them, or to make it so expensive to compete that unless you're already rich you cannot, or to sick FBI or police or military on you.
A company would not be nearly so dangerous if it could not in turn influence the government to destroy you. It is much cheaper to give campaign donations to a US senator and then hand him laws to pass or ask for subsidies or for no-bid government contracts than is it to actually compete in an open market where you have to provide a better service for a better price than everyone else.
I find it amazing that people clamor for the government to protect them and yet day after day we see examples of the government crushing the helpless, confiscating their property, throwing flash bangs at their children, torturing them, or just straight up murdering them, and all without consequence, at most you get a pretty speech than it s back to business as usual handing out billions of tax payer wealth so companies can give some of drippings back to our 'elected' representatives.
And when you bring this up, what do people say? They tell you it's just bad luck, there really are some good people in government, try contacting your your congress critter, try getting into public office. The definition of insanity is to repeat the same action over and over again and expect a different result.
It includes some great quotes from the council spokesperson.
> An 11-year-old girl's cupcake and lemonade stand has been shut down by Bunbury city council officers over health and safety concerns.
> "The city applauds her efforts in trying to be entrepreneurial, but it is important to seek professional advice in relation to legal requirements."
> "If she can look at manufacturing food in a commercial kitchen, then there is a possibility that she will be able to do it in the future," Ms Upton said.
> If the revenue generated from an act isn't enough to even qualify a passing mention on your tax return, I don't see how it could be considered commercial.
Is there such an amount? As far as I know all income is taxable, there is no "minimum amount per source."
If you're talking more "real world" (e.g. pick up a quarter so fail to declare) then why would the FAA care at all about that? You cannot cite some fictional minimum income per source and then expect the FAA to adhere to it.
So if you make $20,000 a year and find $1 on the street, you're supposed to declare that dollar.
Another fun fact: if you crash at a friend's house for a few months without paying rent, you're supposed to count the amount you didn't pay in rent as gift income.
I think it's safe to say that everyone that has filled their taxes has does something wrong. Sometimes it's not even clear to the IRS what a person should do.
So how much didn't you pay in rent? That's like trying to explain how much money you didn't make this year and being taxed on it. I didn't make a billion dollars... do I get taxed for that?
The obvious answer is fair market value, but now you have me wondering if you're supposed to pay for taxes on someone giving you a ride, even in a way where paying for that ride would be illegal...
Hmmm... not quite. In the case of the rent you got some resource,(ie a place to stay) that is worth x amount of dollars. Your friend who was nice enough to cover that expense gave you a gift of x dollars. The amount of money you make is a trade you made for your time. If someone were to do your work for you while you reaped the rewards... yes you would be taxed for that.
One could (un)reasonably -- perhaps logically -- make an argument that all sex now requires filing gift taxes by someone somewhere. Obviously notionally who is giving and who is paying is going to be a thorny issue, but it has to be resolved.
Sex is monetizable in some jurisdictions (almost nowhere in the US, but neverless somewhere!) and as a result all sexual acts have monetary value; it doesn't really matter where they are performed. Given that they have value someone must be giving up income by not charging, and someone else is receiving a gift which the other party is so generously waiving.
So what rate do you tag that with? I mean... your partner is clearly in the price bracket of "high class escort," right? How do you justify how much your partner is worth on a tax return?
Do you let your partner see your tax return for fear that they claim you don't value them as much as you should? Or do you overvalue them and get overtaxed? Where's the fine line? Or do you agree amongst the two of you that for the purpose of your tax returns you're both "$5 blowjob on the corner for crack" material to keep each of your taxes to a minimum? Who's to argue?
Do the government have to send people around to rate you both to ensure you're not skipping out on taxes? "Well, she's a 10 who could easily score the $8,000 a night which is the going rate at Madame's High Class Escorts down the street. You've been living together for 6 years now and you've not claimed this as a taxable benefit. So you owe us back taxes on $17.52M - we don't care that you only earned $480,000 in that time. Also, we're really not understanding how she's with you knowing she could have made $17.04M more if she ditched you." and handing your partner their business card...
Even using "market rates" as this thread is suggesting is an incredibly subjective affair. Let's say you rent a room some place, at market rate for the area... what's market rate? It's 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, shared kitchen; but there's mold and clearly the roof leaks, none of the kitchen cupboards shut properly, the hot water doesn't work, the door lock is a wedge of wood in the door jam, you've seen cockroaches. It's rented out by a slumlord, but it's in a ritzy neighborhood. You're in a position where you have to rent this place, it's a dump, you're not sure if you weren't in this situation that anyone else in their right mind would rent it... the rent is $1,500 a month, because of the location.
Your friend down the street takes pity on you and lets you crash in his spare room to save you the indignity of living in this shit hole. Do you get taxed on the place you can afford or the rate your friend could get if he put his spare room up for rent? Given that he doesn't want to rent his room out to a stranger, but he's letting you crash there for free because he's your friend, what is the market rate for that room? The same as the one down the street which is only room for rent on the street? How does "market rate" get applied?
[I]f you crash at a friend's house for a few months without paying rent, you're supposed to count the amount you didn't pay in rent as gift income.
You're fundamentally correct, but it's worth unpacking the logic here. First, the donor pays the gift tax, unless an agreement is in place for the recipient to do so. The controlling case is Dickman v. Commissioner, 465 U.S. 330 (1984), and the basic idea is that, if you have a recognizable property right, foregoing the commercial use of that property in favor of providing it at a discounted rate creates a recognized gift. The gift amount is determined by the fair market rental value of the property. (This gets around the concern of the poster below about how you're supposed to declare income you didn't receive.)
Gift taxes are really just a method of checking large-scale tax evasion schemes where someone gifts assets to family members; to ameliorate the effects, there's a $14K/person/year exclusionary zone (plus other exemptions and methods to reduce liabilities) where you don't have to declare or worry about gifts.
Technically, couch-surfing probably wouldn't trigger the IRS' interest (not sure even they would try to figure out the fair-market value of a couch and a blanket), but giving someone a room (let alone the full use of a rental property) would in fact be a taxable event. However, it's unlikely, even in the Bay Area, that the value of that would rise above the $14K/person gift exclusion. In Dickman, the parents had to give a lot of interest-free loans to trigger the IRS' interest.
I believe you are correct. Note that this is different from the minimum income you need to make to file a tax return. Now, if there's no paperwork, it doesn't matter in practice. However, I receive Amazon forms for some minimal royalty and other revenue and if I don't include those on my tax returns there's a good chance it would trigger something. I've had Interest 1099s(?) for literally pennies for small dollars in some account that paid minimal interest.
In Canada, you are required to report all income, whether from employment, business or from property, but in practice for small amounts it is sometimes left out. For example, interest on deposits in bank accounts is taxable, but the bank won't send you a form unless you made over $50 in interest that year, so you don't have to claim that dollar you made.
Yes. When the income exceeds your expenses it becomes commercial. That's seems like a very clear and bright line to separate the two without worrying about youtube ads.
I'm not legal expert, but surely there is some legal distinction between selling an old jacket on craigslist and operating a large used clothing store.
Your expenses for the old jacket are the cost of the jacket when new, your computer, the time it takes to post it, etc.
That makes it not commercial. The IRS has rules about "hobby" which are basically the same: If you don't [eventually] make money after expenses and deductions, it's not a business.
Then technically you have to pay taxes on the gain. You would be able to deduct expenses though.
For example there are exemptions written into the law about gain on selling a house, if you don't make too much extra.
Are you trying to ask me about making something commercial retroactively? i.e. you did not buy the jacket with the intent to sell it for more, and now suddenly it's worth more?
The taxes you pay on the gain is just the normal personal income tax, right? Isn't that a separate issue from being regulated as operating a business or commercial venture?
Or you can put the earnings inside a business, and then offset it with expenses. The business could pay you salary, or you can keep the money inside the business and realize it as capital gains tax later when you want.
You have many choices on how to organize the money.
With the caveat that I consider this a pretty ridiculous government action if the facts are as presented...
Defining commerciality is difficult. It's one of the problems I have with the non-commercial variants of Creative Commons licenses. I have seen people on Flickr strongly object to NC photos being used on a blog with Adsense. And how about a large 501(c)(3) non-profit, perhaps one whose politics you disagree with? Take a broad enough view and very little is non-commercial.
Not as it relates to the purpose of a flight regulated under their jurisdiction. A pilot and plane only licensed for personal/hobbyist use would not be legal for commercial flight.
This is awesome, I really hope this guy lawyers up and takes this as high as needed until the FAA is told to go pound sand.
Given that Youtube will use any excuse in the world to slap commercials on your video without your approval[1], and even it you do put ads on your video the "money" demonstrates that pan handling is a much more lucrative use of your time.
My argument would be this a) oversteps the FAA charter because it is incidental revenue, and b) this level of regulation per injurious to the drone companies and their customers who might wish to share their perfectly legal hobby with their friends over a free video sharing service.
[1] - "Oh wait, that bird tweet sounds suspiciously like this note in this copyrighted song, take it down, or let us put ads on it."
I am not a lawyer but I would guess that it would be ok, the flight is being operated by a commercial airline and the FAA has already signed off on that. That said, one wonders if the airline would sue you for damages since you "stole" that view that they gave you as part of the fee you paid to fly, but did not re-license[1] you the right to share that view with others without their written consent. If this goes through I would not be surprised at all to hear and airline using that tactic to boost their revenue per passenger number.
[1] There is a venue where this is already the norm, sports arenas. They explicitly forbid you from recording the event and re-showing it to anyone as part of the ticket "contract". Airlines just need to step up their game and add that to their terms and conditions.
Sorry if I was unclear. I meant holders of non-commercial private pilot's licenses. You see a lot of things like people posting videos recorded during their private flights online. e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPbOQZAymOU
I'd think this interpretation of commercial use would logically apply that as well (and be equally ridiculous).
Yeah, it kind of sounds like someone that decided to stick a GoPro in their C172 would be at risk of falling afoul of this interpretation of commercial use if they stuck the video on YouTube.
Does this mean if YouTube flags a drone video for copyright, now YouTube is the party that's breaking FAA rules because they're the ones using drone footage commercially?
The FAA's definition of "for compensation or hire" as regards to flying is much stricter than that used in any other instances I'm aware of. This story sounds pretty much in line with how it works for aircraft carrying their pilots.
14 CFR 61.113 says "no person who holds a private pilot certificate may act as pilot in command of an aircraft that is carrying passengers or property for compensation or hire; nor may that person, for compensation or hire, act as pilot in command of an aircraft."
Pretty much the only exception that applies widely is the next part, which says "A private pilot may, for compensation or hire, act as pilot in command of an aircraft in connection with any business or employment if:
(1) The flight is only incidental to that business or employment; and
(2) The aircraft does not carry passengers or property for compensation or hire."
This basically means that if you are a pilot that works for a non-aviation related company, you may fly around as part of your job, for example for you and some coworkers to get to a meeting.
If the company or individual makes money directly off the flight, then I'm pretty sure it will never be considered incidental. See my other posts for some things that the FAA does not allow private pilots to do.
As asinine as these regs are, they are long-standing and I don't really see why having the pilot on the ground should make a fundamental difference to whether they're allowed to stand or not.
Based on the existing comments, I realize this won't be popular, but this is a matter of violating FAA regulations for commercial operation of drones.
No one is stopping you from posting drone footage for private purposes, but if you are doing it for commercial purposes and reasons (whether you are directly paid or not, smart-ass) does not matter.
There is a reason this regulation is in place, because you as a private person flying around a quad-copter (see, you're not even calling it by its right name) for hobby and entertainment is a bit of a different thing than doing so for some commercial purpose and flying it every day, all day.
Quit being little brats that are pouting because you can't have what you want when you want it.
I don't think you're being quite fair here. The objections I read are primarily in the vein of this (appearing to be based on the facts as presented) a trivial example of commercial use akin to a blog that has a few Adsense ads. While the commercial use line is difficult to draw, drawing it here makes essentially any public activity commercial whether it involves posting a video on the Web or showing it at anything other than a strictly hobbyist unsponsored event.
The headline and most of this article seem to avoid the real point of the FAA complaint. The problem wasn't flying the drone. The problem wasn't posting the drone video to YouTube. The problem was turning on monetization for the drone videos. If you try to make money a drone flight, you are using the drone commercially. The fact that the money actually made is less than a dollar doesn't really matter as the intention is there to make money. Not saying I agree with the rule, but it seems to be pretty straightforward with relatively little room for interpretation.
EDIT: Even the updated HN headline still doesn't have it right. Neither the video nor the drone flight are illegal. The video just bumps the flight up to a higher tier of regulation from a hobby flight to a commercial flight. A better headline might be "FAA says monetized videos retroactively qualify drone flights as commercial flights."
Sure is fun how actions after the fact can change the legality of something like this. I seriously doubt there was any intent at the time of filming to generate income.
That is interesting. What if the person shooting the video and operating the drone isn't the one monetizing it? What if he uploads the video to a site that won't pay him and the video is stolen and put on a site that pays the person who stole it?
Is the flight of the drone illegal then? Ridiculous logic.
We can use them to kill innocent children who happen to be at a party where some scumbag is hanging out, but don't film your birthday party and upload it to youtube! Don't try to sell your house with a video featuring using a drone to show the roof is in good condition! Oh no! This is the end!
It's not interesting. If the person flying the thing makes money - or intends to -, it's commercial, if not, it isn't. Profit by unrelated third-parties is, unsurprisingly, unrelated.
Don't judge me, but during a coding session, I got caught up watching "Gold Rush" on whatever channel it comes on.
After sort of passively watching it while doing other things, one of the episodes in the marathon was a "behind the scenes" sort of thing, where they showed that drone cinematography is used, basically, in like 80% of the filming done for that show.
They send the cameramen out in two-person teams, one to fly the drone, and the other to operate the camera, with an Oculus-looking visor on so that they can simply see the camera as through a viewfinder.
The "intent to generate income" is not only there, it's at some point in the past.
Most of Gold Rush is filmed in Canada, specifically anything involving "The Klondike", which is in the Yukon, Canada.
They would need to abide by Transport Canada's UAV regulations, and would most likely require a SFOC, which is possible to get if you're operating <400ft commercially. The FAA does not yet have a similar permitting process for commercial drone use.
I think the greater point is that the FAA is meant to regulate aircraft, not the monetization button on youtube. The rule is senseless, and I think the FAA knows that; they are too inflexible to adapt to reality, and they should be practicing non-enforcement as a means of coping. Swarms of drone pilots could be flying and recording without the intent to monetize, and the FAA would have the same and only problem they are attempting to thwart.
It's as if FAA are jealous of the smackdown that FEC got in Citizens United, and would like some judicial abuse for themselves. It would be so much easier for the bureaucrats if there were a Department of Speech Regulation to which they could refer all these cases.
Not just Citizens United but 44 Liquormart is on point as well. There are five Supremes that don't hold much with commercial and political intentions as a backdoor to the First Amendment.
What the other four are thinking is beyond my ken.
I think the real point is that in the times of the internet the line between private and commercial use of anything becomes fuzzier and fuzzier. This is now a problem for the FAA because they rely on a clear distinction between the two, and they won't be the only ones who will stumble.
"Swarms of drone pilots could be flying and recording without the intent to monetize"
I'm not sure I agree with that. As someone who has flown RC Helicopters for a long long time, one of the reasons I haven't gotten more into drones is a) they are "to easy" to fly and get boring [1] (if you don't believe me try flying a 60 size Gas RC Chopper with no gyros) and b) I can't make any money right now because of the "no commercial" rule.
While I don't think people are flying drones to make practically nothing on youtube.com (I think they want to make cool videos obviously) the fact is if you are going to have a rule that says "no commercial" and it hasn't been further defined then you have to stick to that.
Separately, there is a similar quasi rule with regards to using a domain name for commercial purposes (re: Trademark and UDRP filings) and often a domain name owner will lose a case if they don't have a good attorney and if the opposing party is able to take the ads and say "they are making money from my trademark". The amount of the money they are making doesn't really enter that much into the picture.
[1] I bought an AR Drone which I "flew" exactly one time. It's similar to the difference, if you are a skier, between the bunny slope and a black diamond (and I don't mean an East Coast USA black diamond..)
An AR Drone is essentially a "toy class" quadcopter. It's understandable that it would quickly become boring. But as I'm sure you're aware, there is a lot more that can be done with more hobby-grade quadcopters with rate mode (no auto-leveling). And, like large RC helis, there is the whole other world of the electronics and mechanics that go into building, maintaining, and tuning the aircraft. That, for me, is perhaps even more of the fun than actually flying my multirotors.
That's a good point but I don't have any time to do those things (but it would be fun).
That said if you've never flown a gas rc you should give it a try (if you can afford it since they are typically more expensive than an electric especially when you crash and have to fix them..)
>> I think the greater point is that the FAA is meant to regulate aircraft, not the monetization button on youtube.
They have made the distinction before. If you build your own aircraft it can be certified as experimental. You can do anything you like with it that you might do with a Cessna, except commercial operations. I believe you can take a friend for a ride and split the fuel costs, but you may not profit. Why the type of plane matters is not clear to me. Likewise, flying a drone is legal, taking video is legal, why should profit from it be illegal? I don't know.
Simple.. put some mpaa music with your drone footage, and then the MPAA has youtube activate ads... wonder how that would work out. Or still, if I take amateur footage, and TMZ wants to buy the copyright to that footage, can I sell the copyright? It was still an amateur, non-commercial flight... wouldn't copyright law (constitution) trump FAA regulation?
But there's an even weaker argument for the monetized video distinction than the flying with a friend distinction, because the former happens potentially long after the flight even occurred. It's entirely possible to not even intend to monetize a flight video while recording it, and in that case, it's impossible for the subsequent monetization to affect the flight itself in any way.
The legal status does not change retroactively. If the flight was done according to the rules set out for private flight then you, as a pilot, are prohibited to make any money from it (with some exceptions). Getting commercial license will not allow you to earn money on previous flights that were done as a private pilot.
I would imagine profiting from experimental aircraft is forbidden mostly for safetly concerns, since you probably wouldn't want someone making a fleet of aircraft out of their garage and routinely selling flights with them. Certainly that aspect doesn't apply to drones tho, since there's no inherint safety risk that I can see.
The potential for monetary reward for drone flights fundamentally changes the risks a pilot is prepared to take. If the conditions are marginal or if there's more people around than I feel comfortable with, I pack my gear up and go home. If there was a significant amount of money at stake in "getting the shot", I'd be _very_ tempted to push the limits further than I do as a hobbyist. If there was a large amount of money involved, and the risks of getting caught were low enough, it'd be very tempting to break the law to get the money. I choose to stay right out of that game for those reasons - but you only need to look at the paparazzi industry to know that when the money is right, people are happy to do impolite, dangerous, immoral, and illegal things to "get the shot". Even as a hobbyist multicopter builder/flier I'd rather not see "my hobby" being used that way - at least not without some accountability and consequences for people who choose to behave like that.
Agreed... what if the person flying the drone has no knowledge of the intent by a third party to eventually monetize the video? Can their flying be retroactively and involuntarily criminalized by a third party who is given and then monetizes the footage?
The legal question is whether "the aircraft is flown strictly for hobby or recreational use."
To me, this suggests:
(1) the statute looks to the purpose of the flight when the flight occurred--later developments don't matter
(2) actions of third-parties not involved in the operation of the drone also don't matter
Remember, the FAA has the authority to regulate drone flight for commercial purposes. They don't have the authority to regulate Youtube, other people's filming, etc.
What if I fly and record footage and then sell the SD card for $500.. I was selling the SS card not the footage. What an interesting court case this is going to turn into, I'm not sure how many hairs need to be split before someone reasonable will come along and call BS on the FAAs position.
I wonder if I could have a small business where I sell my services for some small hourly fee to teach other RC enthusiasts how to fly RC planes. During this training I'd probably be using the RC planes myself, and it would be for a commercial purpose...
I see a few RC instructor business on google that has a commercial pilot as the instructor, I wonder if that is required.
Interesting question. The AMA (model airplane hobby organization) has invited members of the model airplane community to submit comments to the FAA seeking clarification on precisely that issue.
There are some fairly major online video productions that feature RC aircraft heavily. http://flitetest.com/ is a major YouTube channel dedicated to model aviation. Ever major tech journalism sites has probably covered consumer-ready aircraft like DJI's products.
That there could be legal challenges for these companies is rage-inducing. It is completely ludicrous. It's a waste of everyone's time and money (both taxpayers paying for the bureaucracy, and the companies defending the legal challenges), and does absolutely nothing for safety.
Well the FAA wants the drone pilot to have a commercial pilot license in order to shoot commercial video with it. Seems entirely silly to me. In my opinion there should be an altitude requirement involved here. Like, okay if you own a drone that is capable of going over 2000 ft you need a license to fly it regardless of whether you'll be filming. I have no idea if that is a reasonable threshold or not.
As a pilot who wants top live, i'd prefer people without training to stay out of the sky. Flying an extension of you (your drone) is even worse because you have even less interest in the safety since in a mid-air collision between planes, you die too. If your drone hits my plane - you do not die. Want to fly? Get a license. Want to fly a drone? Still get a license!
What you ask (FAA to leave the issue alone) is akin to letting 2 year olds drive 18-wheelers on the roads you drive your kids to school on? Feeling comfy with that?
0 is a good one
As a pilot who wants top live, i'd prefer people without training to stay out of the sky.
Then I suggest you stay out of the sky, because we're not going to make it 100.000000% safe for you, ever. You don't own the universe above 0 AGL. Other people need to use it, too.
Nobody flying a drone below several hundred feet is, or should be, a hazard to you, as long as they're not doing so near an airport. Existing regulations are just fine in that regard without making up a bunch of horseshit about "monetization."
What you ask (FAA to leave the issue alone) is akin to letting 2 year olds drive 18-wheelers on the roads you drive your kids to school on? Feeling comfy with that?
The arrogance it must take to post something like that is simply breathtaking. You probably throw beer cans at bicyclists when you pass them on the road, too.
Reasonably a drone flying at 50 - 100ft is of no danger to full size aircraft unless it's within a airports flight path which is illegal anyway. There are 40k deaths in cars each year and yet even with widespread use of model aircraft over the past 50years I've yet to hear about one taking down a full size plane.
I'm a pilot too, so I sympathize with your position. But I think there's room for a more reasonable accommodation than simply requiring everyone who flies a drone to get a pilots license, e.g. license-free operation of drones less than a certain weight in uncontrolled airspace, under a certain altitude, and a certain distance from airports.
That's an extremist position. What if I want to build model rockets? They go into the sky, but the commercially available stuff doesn't go high enough to normally affect airplanes so they're legal and unlicensed and have been for decades. Same for model airplanes, and model helicopters, and until we slapped the word 'drone' on quadcopters and strapped on good video cameras they weren't a concern either.
Likewise, I'll take the opposite extreme position that if you want to fly airplanes over populated locations, stay more than a couple thousand feet away as well, you're noisy and small aircraft and their pilots don't have quite the safety record that large ones do. How many people have quadcopter operators killed compared to small aircraft pilots? Seems like the answer should be that pilots of small aircraft, the planes vulnerable to small impacts and the pilots actually killing people should be kept away from the populace. What's the utility of allowing small aircraft to fly over my house anyways?
There's definitely room for both activities in the air.
> How many people have quadcopter operators killed
Zero, meanwhile even Harrison Ford, an extremely qualified pilot, found a golf course when his engine gave out. Shit happens, and we need to plan accordingly instead of trying to prevent the shit in the first place. Oddly enough, I don't see worldwide media focusing on the private aviation hobby and how dangerous it is to everyone even though he landed on a fucking golf course. But no, one drone lands on the White House lawn and it's a national emergency with firmware updates pushed by DJI in response to ban Washington, D.C.
My work, as I point out elsewhere in this thread, is to educate folks about the positive uses for drone technology and the industry that's about to happen. The possibilities of extending our senses into the air around us are endless. I've had people come up to me while operating in public and threaten me and my equipment. People are shooting at drones with some frequency in the more backwater parts of the United States. I'm waiting for one of those bullets to land a few miles away and kill a child, because I predict the backlash will be against the fliers, not the shooters.
I often feel like I'm pushing, hopelessly against the avalanche of media fearmongering, because this technology has real, potent uses that should appeal to this community of startup tinkerers and hobbyists. We could be investing in automatic technology to build upon TCAS and integrate commercial UAS into that system, but we're not: we're trying to prevent the industry from ever happening.
Imagine the Wright Brothers trying to tinker in today's regulatory climate. Remember how all of us fought against classifying our hobby as "drones," even though it's technically correct, because most peoples' exposure to the word "drone" is centered around Hellfire-carrying platforms? Yeah, this is why.
I was just playing devil's advocate in light of an unreasonable position on the issue. I honestly don't know much about model rocketry specifics (build a few as a kid like 20 years ago, purchased as a kid, from a local hobby shop). I assume you can make them go more than 400ft into the air without much effort but you're probably not supposed to.
> Don't model rockets routinely go much higher than the 400 feet the FAA has traditionally limited hobby aircraft to?
Even if they do, they're mostly cardboard, whereas model airplanes have things like small engine blocks. I bet a 737 engine could ingest a model rocket without anyone noticing.
You'd be surprised. Jet engines are designed to be robust against some really crazy scenarios (I'm amazed a jet engine continues to function during the water injection tests I've seen), but all it takes is one blade failure -- with many to choose from in various places in the engine -- and it's game over. One can imagine many ingestions that might cause a blade failure, because the rotating fans in a jet engine are very high energy environments. With the right alignment of planets and hitting just right, a model rocket might cause a failure. It all depends and is hard to predict. Most people would predict modern engines as likely to survive ingestion of geese, but then we had US 1549 (and a USAF E-3 at Elmendorf before it).
Even though the FAA has engine manufacturers like GE test the hell out of engines, it's tough to predict what will happen in the real world. Birds are a huge threat to aviation, both engine ingestion and windscreen collisions, and birds are mostly organic. (It goes without saying to stand the hell away from an operating jet engine even at idle, too, because humans do get ingested with fatal results.) I can't imagine an operating engine ingesting a drone or anything else with non-organic components would go well, and this is why I always advocate very strongly for safe drone operation.
Here's an intentional intake blade failure to ascertain whether the engine can contain the failure without threatening the aircraft; this is useful to see what happens if something is ingested that causes a catastrophic blade failure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAhjSviYVr8
They can, but it's not routine, at least with the model rockets readily available to non-certified hobbyists (think Estes, maybe some of the G-motor Aerotech rockets).
Routine 400+ foot launches are more the purview of dedicated rocket launch events, which typically do go through extensive FAA clearance and such, and which have certification processes in place for those flying all but the lowest-powered rockets. Airspace is usually sanitized, and for good reason: these sorts of rockets tend to be much bigger than your ordinary backyard-launched Estes rockets, and very well could do significant damage to an airplane should a collision occur.
Actually, 1,000 ft flights are pretty routine. Any model rocket engine with a "-5" on the end is going to coast for 5 seconds after the fuel burns out. If the model is light enough to be near the top of its arc at that time, it will be about 1000 feet up. Flights with engines that end in "-3" (3 second coast) tend to end up about 300 to 400 feet up.
Tip: if you want to fly in a baseball field, and get your model back (not drift out of the park), stick with engines like "B6-4" or "C6-3" and models sized for those engines. If you fly a C6-5 or a D12-7, you had better have a good size farm to land in and a few friends to help spot :-)
I can understand your concerns if folks are flying their RC helicopters around airports, but I'm pretty sure there are already airspace restrictions around airports for the same reasons you've mentioned. Beyond that, unless you're routinely buzzing rooftops, a low-altitude "drone" probably shouldn't be of any concern to your own flying, since you're going to be on an entirely different altitude vector.
I'm no pilot, but several of my coworkers are. Based on various conversations with them about flying (altitude clearances, ATC, etc.), I'd reckon you're severely over-reacting by calling for an outright ban on unlicensed RC aircraft flight. Altitude and airspace restrictions are reasonable; outright bans are not.
Practically any drone that can cary a gopro could also fly to 2000ft and you're limited to 500ft by the rules anyway. The issue is the FAA has always allowed model aircraft however now the technology has advanced to the point that those aircraft have potential to be widely used in commercial applications and the FAA is trying to hold back that use. This can't be left to the FAA alone, next gen ATC has taken them 20years and it's still not implemented if we were to follow the same path with drone integration it would likely not happen for another 20. The cat is out of the bag, people have drones and they need to move quickly to get some sane regulations for commercial use instead of sending letters and fines.
They have backed off of the need for a pilot's license in their latest proposal and are now looking at an "Operator's Certificate" some good news amongst other not so good regs.
Interesting point - I think I agree with your logic, re: "retroactive" concept of a commercial use case.
What I'm curious about, though, is if the video is considered an artwork, can the FAA reasonably use their authority to classify the flight as commercial in nature?
As in, if the purpose of the recording was not simply for profit, but profit comes by way of the artistic contribution (e.g. editing, adding a soundtrack, creating a montage for entertainment) then it's not really a "commercial flight" but simply a personal use resulting in a commerically viable product. There are some hairs to be split in this distinction I think. I mean, taking a video out the window of a personal / private aircraft is suddenly under the FAA's purvue by implication? I don't think they would be wise to go that route, but if they are, that'd be good to know in a hurry. There are a LOT of YouTube videos that suddenly run afoul of an overly broad interpretation, I'd wager.
I'm not claiming to have the last word on this, but rather using my inherent stubbornness, creative background, and understanding of intellectual property / fair use / artistic case law as factors in the discussion. Hmm. Seems like a fun debate, and one that could be productive!
If you're monetizing it at all it seems pretty straightforward. A video you don't consider art could be monetized, a video you do consider art could be monetized, it doesn't really matter. It's kind of a silly distinction to say that the person's intent means the FAA couldn't make any case to categorize it as commercial, because they laid out a very clear cut definition.
I mean if someone does consider their video a purely artistic endeavor, then they just shouldn't monetize it. If it's a case like here where the money would have been nominal, then it shouldn't matter. And if they have an issue with not monetizing it then they're looking to make money off of it, and so it would certainly be commercial use.
What I'm saying though is that it's the artistic effort being monetized.
It's kind of like saying a person can go buy a lump of clay, but if they turn it into a vase, then they can't sell it.
Thus, the flight itself isn't being monetized. My point is that the FAA thinks it has authority to regulate artistic endeavors in this case, because they choose to define the flight's nature retroactively, when in essence, the flight itself is not the commodity, nor is the product of the flight the actual commercial product...I mean, tying a camera to a balloon and then making a video of that runs afoul of the FAA with this/your logic?
Let's say you upload the video to YouTube. You don't monetize it. But you have it linked to a channel that has completely legal videos being monetized. Being that someone could be drawn to the other videos by first watching your video, should it be considered to be monetized?
Or let's say you upload the video to YouTube. This is your only video, you don't monetize it. But by YouTube hosting it, people go to YouTube where they will now see other videos on the side bar. They click one and it is monetized. Because of your video, YouTube made some money (even if it is a fraction of a penny).
What if you used the video in a portfolio to get a job. Maybe it was the pièce de résistance that won you the job. You used it to secure financial gain... should that count as commercial use?
1) Maybe. If all the videos on that channel are monetized, than it should be considered monetized (i.e., as an ad or trailer for the other videos.
2) Why does it matter if an unrelated third party can monetize other videos using your unmonetized video? You cannot control whether YouTube shows monetized videos in its suggested watching sidebar. You, the pilot, did not monetize your video, and that is what matters for purposes of the regulation.
3) Context matters. It could be treated as a commercial use, but it depends on the greater context of the video. If it was just a portfolio item to get a job as an employee, it likely would not rise to the level of commercial use. But if it was used as a portfolio item to get a job as a contractor/service provider providing drone footage, then it would most likely be treated as a commercial use.
The reason YouTube exists and that you can upload videos is so said third party can make money. If they weren't monetizing videos, including yours, the service wouldn't exist. In effect, you are using your video as a form fo payment for having the service. Is a single video that much in the grand scheme of things? No; probably a fraction of a penny. But it is still part of the transaction you are paying to use their service.
>3
Why would this context matter when monetizing it the context of how much money is made doesn't matter. Even if operating at a loss, making only pennies for every dollar spent, it still counts as monetizing?
It's really not that straightforward. What if you don't directly put ads on the video, but the video attracts attention to you or your company, which indirectly provides some monetary benefits?
Heck, what if flying a drone on my own time helps me relax, which makes me more productive at my normal desk job?
>As in, if the purpose of the recording was not simply for profit, but profit comes by way of the artistic contribution
In my opinion, if you fly the drone with the intend to use the resulting footage in any commercial product (e.g. a _monetized_ youtube video), then that flight was commercial in nature. And because we can't measure intent, we have to assume that every flight that results in a commercial product was started with the intend of producing that product.
Maybe in some cases you can make a point that the flight was primarily for enjoyment and the video was just a byproduct. That might be a viable argument for a paraglider without established audience, but it's harder to defend for a drone with a camera strapped to it.
What do you mean intent can't be measured? Of course intent can be measured, if one cares to do so. It's called asking a question / taking a deposition. If a person says "I was making an art project" and they monetize it, then the flight itself isn't actually the product. If the flight was for enjoyment and the video was a byproduct then how, logically, can one be prevented from monetizing it? I know this is really a fine line but art and commerce are often at odds in such respects.
I'm flying my drone near a hotel... the manager catches a small clip on youtube and wants to buy the copyright for that whole, raw footage from me... I cannot sell my copyright (constitutional law) under FAA rules (fiat regulation)?
It seems to me this is a bit of a mixed bag here, and in which case there's a clear pattern, footage shot, non-commercial use first... meaning intent can be shown.
The problem is that the FAA doesn't issue licenses for private use of commercial drones right now, effectively making monetized videos against the law.
Quote from another article:
"Chris Servicky, a licensed helicopter pilot who helps run the company, says they never got the FAA’s letter and says that he talked to the FAA about trying to get certified and they said no.
'They don’t want you to make money off of it, so we sell the editing of the video,' he said."[1]
Saying monetized drone videos are legal is akin to saying meth is legal. Technically it is if you have a prescription, but it's near impossible to get a prescription, rendering that point moot when it comes to legality.
I've seen plenty of SV real estate guys using drones for aerial shots for their listings, and since the revenue per deal is large in a residential real estate sale, unless the fine is substantial it'll just get rolled up into "cost of doing business".
There aren't many instances of actual fines, but this is the most prominent one: The FAA tried to fine drone pilot Raphael Pirker $10,000 [1] for being paid by the University of Virginia Medical Center to film a promo video with a drone. Pirker challenged the fine and won. The FAA changed its rules after that decision and Pirker eventually settled for $1,100.
IANAL, but I think that (drone photos of real estate) falls under "flight in furtherance of business," which is legal for those without a commercial certificate.
Taking photos of real estate and then selling those photos to a real estate agent would still be illegal, thouigh.
If you use a third-party song in your video, monetization is turned on automatically but not for you. Your logic falls down when you understand YouTube's ad system. An ad can run on your video in any number of circumstances, monetized or not.
I am directly impacted by this due to my work to educate folks about proper, safe drone usage given media mischaracterization and fearmongering (like that recent Audi ad) about drones. All of my videos are artistic in nature and work to educate the public on the positive, market-generating usages of drones, such as aerial filmmaking, land survey, search and rescue, and other uses. Your comment smacks of lacking all of the context around FAA enforcement against drone fliers in recent years, and rushing to defend an agency that has burned all positive relationships it ever had with the hobbyist industry, both drones and otherwise.
The FAA has repeatedly missed deadlines to get its shit together, and is on track to miss another that was set by Congress for the end of this year. In the meantime, they've devoted their resources to pursuing drone fliers in court (and losing, quite dramatically, on taxpayer dollars) and sending toothless cease and desist notices like this. Nobody with an ounce of common sense can possibly conclude what you have, that a YouTube ad suddenly makes the flight commercial. If a private pilot records the view out of his cockpit window and then puts ads on the video on YouTube, he's not suddenly a (potentially unlicensed) commercial operator.
It follows that this action is just another excuse for the FAA to harass drone pilots and people attempting to build a multi-million dollar industry in the United States. Nothing about this is sane, and the FAA is repeatedly demonstrating that it's happy to service those with money and who can make noise in government -- the sudden (and rapid) creation of the certification exemption program for law enforcement after DHS started flying Predators over the border, for example -- while pinching the rest of us in court. You shouldn't make any attempt to defend the FAA; most people (me included) who really want to make something of UAS are already looking to other nations and have begun operating under more progressive regulatory schemes.
If you use a third-party song in your video, monetization is turned on automatically but not for you. Your logic falls down when you understand YouTube's ad system. An ad can run on your video in any number of circumstances, monetized or not.
Irrelevant; what matters is if the person flying the plane makes money, not if unrelated third-parties do.
That put these FAA rules into the regulation of media.
That sounds like something that will be litigated, IMHO.
I doubt a court will let that stand without some threshold of materiality. A flight that costs $5 or whater and makes $0.05 is not implicitly a commercial enterprise. Using basic IRS rules, that is a "hobby" activity not a business activity, by definition. That's at least one objective standard that could be brought to bear.
> The fact that the money actually made is less than a dollar doesn't really matter as the intention is there to make money. Not saying I agree with the rule, but it seems to be pretty straightforward with relatively little room for interpretation.
Monetizing the video later may be evidence of intent to use the drone commercially at the time the drone was flown, but its fairly weak evidence, since its quite possible for the intent to be formed after the drone was flown. The purpose of an act can't change retroactively, but the proceeds of an act carried out with one purpose may well have a different purpose than that of the act when it was carried out.
Now, obviously, in the case where the party flying the drone has an ongoing operation of monetizing videos that exists prior to the time the drone is flown, flies the drone, and quickly turns around and monetizes the video from the drone, the combination of factors is pretty strong evidence that the drone was used commercially rather than the video being commercialized after the drone was flown.
If you make a profit derived from aviation activity in the U.S. you have to have a commercial pilot certificate. It's been this way for decades. The FAA has proposed a reduced burden certification for drones that merely involves passing a test.
A certified private pilot can't even break even when sharing expenses. It's operating cost divided by number of occupants, and since the pilot is an occupant he must pay a fair share or it's a violation of his certification.
A certified commercial pilot can't even arrange the aircraft, or it's considered a charter operation, which operates under different regulations (FAR 135). So the commercial pilot has to be hired separately from the aircraft to engage in a general aviation for profit flight. Again, it's been this way for decades.
It would seem this law made sense before, but one should be allowed to video oneself with a drone and post it to YouTube without consequences. I don't really see what the general population has to lose from this action.
The same problem applies to a pilot who sells aerial photos, and even if there's a photographer on board taking aerial photos for the purpose of licensing them commercially, the purpose of the flight is commercial. It's a slippery slope if the purpose of the video is purely personal, yet the video author knows he's going to make money by putting it up on youtube. Seems like Google should have a way to opt out of being paid for videos. You're either selling a license, or you're sharing them under some e.g. "creative commons" type license and not making any money off of them.
You're saying every pilot whose flown a small Cessna where a passenger writing an article for a magazine took a photo or two was commercially certified?
" In general, whenever we receive a complaint about an unauthorized UAS operation, we contact the operator and educate them about the regulations so they can comply,"
It seems to me that the above is more orientated towards repeat offenders than for a couple one-time pictures.
Technically and absolutely they should have been (and in this instance, I agree) - the magazine and/or photographer likely compensated the pilot for their time, fuel and use of the aircraft which is very precisely the definition of a commercial air operation.
My feeling is that a coincidental situation like that should be acceptable (the FAA may well disagree).
In terms of sharing costs (or accepting compensation) for rides, there is often a straight face test - is it genuinely and sincerely a shared interest in undertaking a flight, with a goal (outside the flight itself) for both the pilot and passenger. If not, then it's considered commercial. The FAA rightly or wrongly tends to view "nudge nudge wink wink" stuff on the conservative side.
Yes. Most people don't know this, but there's two certifications for "getting paid as a pilot" one is the commercial certificate, the other is the airline transport pilot (pilot vernacular is to say "she/he's an ATP"). So when you think of "commercial air carriers" those are ATPs. People who fly cargo, certified flight instructors, many charter pilots, etc have commercial certificates.
cmurf is correct. The FAA has an absolutely ridiculous standard for what they consider commercial activity. If you are a private pilot, you may not:
* Go joyriding with a friend if they pay you more than their share of the operating expenses (gas, oil, airport fees, etc) of the flight.
* Have a friend ask you "hey, want to fly to <insert location> this weekend?" and then take him there. Doing so could be construed as you providing a transportation service, even if he pays you nothing.
Basically, what you can do is offer friends to come along on a flight you intend to make and will make even if they don't come, while paying no more than their fair share. If making the flight is contingent on them coming, you are providing a transportation service.
The fact that these activities would be perfectly fine if done in a car apparently matters not one whit to the FAA.
So, put another way, the law is outdated and needs to be fixed. I'm sure when the commercial requirements were added to the FAA regulations, they weren't intended to target what is essentially hobbyists operating RC planes with home video recorders attached.
This seems needlessly burdensome and most likely net negative for the FAA.
The law, as it's drafted, is daft. Holding companies, anyone?
Drone pilot generates footage, donates it for free to his shell company. Shell company monetizes video. Shell company has never operated an aircraft. Profit.
The law only makes sense for commercial activity directly related to flying, as far as I'm concerned.
One of the mistakes armchair lawyers make is assuming that the mere text of the rules is all that matters. In many cases, and especially when dealing with regulations issued by agencies, the intent of the regulation also matters. (Note: statute/law = issued by Congress; regulation = issued by government agency.) Agency regulations are not held to the strict interpretive requirements as are statutes, since agency regulations by their very nature include a measure of interpretation. (For more information on this topic, lookup Chevron deference.)
The clear intent of the regulations are to prevent unregistered commercial use of drone footage. Thus, in this case it doesn't matter if the drone pilot doesn't commercialize the footage if he gives it to his own shell company* to commercialize. That would be illegal under the plain intent of the regulations. (It could be different if he gave it completely for free to an unrelated company and they commercialized it without his permission or knowledge.)
The right to fly a drone is a permissive license, so the burden to prove non-commercial use can be placed on the pilot. The pilot's intent not to commercialize the footage at the time of shooting can matter...but only if he can show that he did not intend to commercialize the footage at the time he recorded it. Thus, for example, a guy randomly shooting footage happens to capture a newsworthy event and later sells that footage to a news network will most likely be treated as not operating the drone commercially. However, if the guy flies his drone for the purpose of capturing a newsworthy event and later sells the footage, he will likely be treated as operating the drone commercially unless he can demonstrate a non-commercial intent.
If you are making money off of flying, then the FAA considers it a commercial activity, which by the letter of the regulations requires a commercial certificate.
It matters not one bit to the FAA whether the video is taken by a drone, a balloon, a human pilot, a monkey, or whatever.
Thinking some more about this, I also believe that shooting a Gopro into the air with a trebuchet does not constitute flying, because the regs define aircraft something along the lines of "a device designed to travel through the air".
If you put fins on it, though, one could argue that you have now designed it to travel through the air, and hence you now become subject to the FARs.
There seems to be a big gray area with "pure hobbyist" on the left and "commercial drone operations" (let's say Amazon's hypothetical delivery service by way of an example) on the right. This particular case would be one tick from "pure hobbyist".
More concerning to me are those small-scale "commercial" operations that I'm seeing more and more: wedding photographers using quadcopters, or realtors taking "eagle-eye" photographs. These are "commercial" operations (even though by every other definition they would fall into the hobbyist definition[1]), so according to the FAA, they need one of two things[2]:
1. A section 33 exemption, of which only 44 have been granted.
2. A Special Airworthiness Certificate (SAC) from the FAA.
Maybe the Small UAS Rule will change this for the better, but right now, this seems ridiculous.
FAA spokesperson Les Dorr was quoted in the article as saying that it was possible the reason the FAA decided to send the warning letter was because several of his videos involve flying near and overhead of non-participants.
Depending on the UAV, that could present a significant danger to them, especially if he lost control of it. The FAA letter makes reference to this at the bottom of page one.
Flying in that manner is against the regulations of the AMA.
I suspect that the reason the FAA letter even mentions the word "commercial" is because there are basically three ways to fly UAV that the FAA considers legal:
1. Government -- I don't know much about this one.
2. Commercial -- requires the appropriate licenses and permits from the FAA with strict guidelines on the restrictions for any given flight.
3. Hobby -- The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 has a few specific requirements to be eligible to fly as a Hobbyist. The first is that the flight does not result in any revenue (with a few very small and fuzzy exemptions) and the second is "the aircraft is operated in accordance with a community-based set of safety guidelines and within the programming of a nationwide community-based organization"
Since he was flying in a way that would not be in accordance to the AMA's regulations, and he isn't flying as an authorized government agent, the FAA is likely putting him in the only remaining category, commercial.
All that said, I despise the way the FAA is treating UAV operators. Everything from their absurd interpretations of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 to their glacial pace at actually making commercial flights a reasonable possibility.
First, the FAA should care about safety, not money.
But it seems all they care about is that you could actually compete with maned planes' pilots.
I fly my drones against the law every single day because the law is completely outdated in my country(Spain) because basically they copy the stupid US model.
In theory I have to put a deposit of 3000 euros for flying a less than 1 kg drone,and register my activity, and what not for a 5 meters above ground recordings. The same as I would have to if I flied a more than 600Kgs helicopter. Non sense.
Companies are using drones anyway, they just don't tell anybody. Proof that I am using a drone and not a crane.
Can't read the article right now, so going off of title and other comments...
This does not fly (heh) with my current understanding of "commercial use" in regards to photography, which I wouldn't consider much different than video.
I can enter a US National Park without any specific permit and take a photo of a natural feature. I can sell prints of this photo for a profit. This is not a "commercial use" of the photo.
I can't enter said park without permit and with the intention to shoot promotional photos of my new super nature product. These photos would be used to sell said product. This is a commercial use.
The distinction is profiting from the work itself or using the work to generate profit on something else.
The FAA was established in the late 1950s, spurred by the then-largest largest air collision in 1956 over the Grand Canyon causing 100+ deaths. The original intent of the FAA was to increase safety in obvious ways: monitor the air space, define flight rules, etc.
But today they are spending time and resources deciding what to do with drone videos being monetized or not?? Clearly they have deviated from their original intent...
This is a sort of repeating event over the last several decades. People with libertarian leanings find (thing) which they believe sidesteps (regulator powers of some kind). Slowly, (regulator) asserts itself, up to and including force of law or even armed response.
I don't know when this pattern will stop happening. You're _never_ going to move to a floating/flying platform in the middle of the ocean/in space and cyberjack into a utopian free-for-all.
I am an attorney and the law is actually more nuanced. If you are flying under 83 feet on private property you can monetize the video and it is not against the law. U.S. v. Causby, 328 U.S. 256, 258 (1946)->https://nimia.com/drone-footage-require-property-release/
That page you linked to says you can monetize the video if you get FAA certification before the flight. That doesn't seem to be any different from what the story here is.
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[ 239 ms ] story [ 4965 ms ] threadbeing an immigrant with no vested interests with any political movement, during the 15 years here i found the conservatives' alleged "anti-government stance" is among the biggest and most blatant propaganda lies. They are trigger happy to expand the government power and reach whenever it helps to squash the "bigger evil" - people's liberties and freedoms (with the white people's gun rights being the only exception). Voter ID laws for example. Birth control. AETA laws. Or just google ALEC ...
If the poster had said, "The FAA is wasteful and does not need to exist" that's perhaps an interesting topic that could be discussed. "They're over-paid over-pensioned trawling YouTube all day" doesn't really lend itself to a useful discussion IMO.
Maybe it's subtle but attitude matters.
Assuming you mean you bought the shot footage, then the drone operator is responsible for getting the right clearance to commercially film with a drone and _you_ would probably be rightfully angry that the footage you bought was not "licensed" properly.
"Drones taking monetized videos are commercial flights, according to FAA"
See FAA
Is anyone familiar with the concept of a revolving door? The FAA isn't magically immune to this process and is in fact a good case study of the phenomenon.
But continue to downvote comments not because they aren't true but because they challenge your mistakenly held beliefs.
Strange, I didn't know there was any non-commercial component to the first amendment. How did newpapers and newcasts, which are also commercial activities, escape such issues?
The act of flying a plane becomes retroactively illegal because money was made from a video? Can we be adults and admit this has nothing to do with lawfulness and everything to do with money?
Unless your newspaper is delivering its newspapers by drones, they would not run into this issue.
It's like if someone saw me pick up a quarter on the sidewalk and cited me for operating a business without a permit and being improperly zoned.
that wouldn't be that bad considering the alternative charge of say "money laundering" (if, say, you puff off some grains of sand from the quarter), "illegal deposit acceptance" or other money transfer/handling crimes.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3171665
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/08/03/the-inexplic...
> In Coralville, Iowa police shut down 4-year-old Abigail Krstinger’s lemonade stand after it had been up for half an hour. Dustin Krustinger told reporters that his daughter was selling lemonade at 25 cents a cup during the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Race Across Iowa (or RAGBRAI), and couldn’t have made more than five dollars, adding “If the line is drawn to the point where a four-year-old eight blocks away can’t sell a couple glasses of lemonade for 25 cents, than I think the line has been drawn at the wrong spot.”
It would be humorous except non-government, non-corporate individuals have no way to redress grievances.
You can protest, is what I'm saying.
I'm not saying that a few bad apples spoil the bunch. What I said was that it isn't true that all parts of every government office are abusive. I implied that issues in Idaho's state government aren't the same as those in Miami's Precinct Alderman's offices, and those are different than those in Washington, D.C.
Where shall I gather the money to run radio ads? You actually believe planting trees is a way to address grievances?
My state and national representative will not care one iota for my opinion if it isn't attached to either A: a large check or B: a large constituency.
I wrote there are numerous examples of government abuse on all levels, how is it then not true that every government office is abusive? Yes, perhaps this particular ranger in this particular state park is clean as a whistle -- in our orchard of rotten apples there are still a few good ones if you pick through the garbage.
Radio: any type of fundraising that you believe would work, or try to get free air time on local broadcasts or regional programs. It helps if you have an interesting topic to talk about.
Trees: If it gets your message across, yes. It would be a good news story.
"My state and national representative will not care one iota for my opinion if it isn't attached to either A: a large check or B: a large constituency."
Have you ever tried? This is the kind of statement made by someone who has nothing but second- and third-hand knowledge of the process, usually garnered through biased news organizations (they all are).
My experience has been that very few citizens are involved in politics as lobbying goes. I'm convinced that if every private citizen got as involved in the actual process as they are in complaining, actual, paid lobbyists would be driven out of business. They only speak for us because we do not speak for ourselves.
I have successfully lobbied my state representative. I wrote to the local paper, I arranged an interview with compelling stories for local television. I made a nuisance out of myself until I got airtime on local radio stations. I made such a stink that my federal representatives even called me to discuss the issue and ask for my thoughts (albeit not too much in depth). I spoke for myself, because the people who were doing it full time didn't have my best interests at heart.
But, I felt passionately about the topic. You're right, it's easier with money, but you can also spend time and energy for nearly as good of a return. Not everyone has these things to spare, and I appreciate that (I was lobbying against cuts to low-income early childhood in my area; the exact kind of people who have neither time, money, nor energy to fight the fight). But, if it's something you truly feel is right, just, and good, you'll figure out how to make it happen.
Finally, to bring it back around to the original argument; it may be that several government entities are abusive. It is probably true that a majority are corrupt. But to say that ---all-- government is abusive or corrupt is just ridiculous. Those type of arguments add nothing to the conversation other than noise.
I guess they probably would have sued her parents on top of closing the stand.
Second, while these organizations theoretically "have no such right", there are plenty of instances where they do directly wield force yet escape justice, abuse the force-wielding functions of government to harm people, or use their concentrated power to buy off parts of the government (principle agent problem). Insisting that these are ultimately government problems because a perfect minimalist government would not succumb is highly wishful thinking. It's falling into the classic political trap of addressing one half the problem while drumming up full-speed-ahead support for the other half.
A company would not be nearly so dangerous if it could not in turn influence the government to destroy you. It is much cheaper to give campaign donations to a US senator and then hand him laws to pass or ask for subsidies or for no-bid government contracts than is it to actually compete in an open market where you have to provide a better service for a better price than everyone else.
I find it amazing that people clamor for the government to protect them and yet day after day we see examples of the government crushing the helpless, confiscating their property, throwing flash bangs at their children, torturing them, or just straight up murdering them, and all without consequence, at most you get a pretty speech than it s back to business as usual handing out billions of tax payer wealth so companies can give some of drippings back to our 'elected' representatives.
And when you bring this up, what do people say? They tell you it's just bad luck, there really are some good people in government, try contacting your your congress critter, try getting into public office. The definition of insanity is to repeat the same action over and over again and expect a different result.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_agencies_in_the...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-23/bunbury-girls-lemonade...
It includes some great quotes from the council spokesperson.
> An 11-year-old girl's cupcake and lemonade stand has been shut down by Bunbury city council officers over health and safety concerns.
> "The city applauds her efforts in trying to be entrepreneurial, but it is important to seek professional advice in relation to legal requirements."
> "If she can look at manufacturing food in a commercial kitchen, then there is a possibility that she will be able to do it in the future," Ms Upton said.
Is there such an amount? As far as I know all income is taxable, there is no "minimum amount per source."
If you're talking more "real world" (e.g. pick up a quarter so fail to declare) then why would the FAA care at all about that? You cannot cite some fictional minimum income per source and then expect the FAA to adhere to it.
Edit: Or $400.
http://www.freelancetaxation.com/the-minimum-freelancers-nee...
So if you make $20,000 a year and find $1 on the street, you're supposed to declare that dollar.
Another fun fact: if you crash at a friend's house for a few months without paying rent, you're supposed to count the amount you didn't pay in rent as gift income.
I think it's safe to say that everyone that has filled their taxes has does something wrong. Sometimes it's not even clear to the IRS what a person should do.
They had to give me the loan at at least the prime rate (which was fine for me, since at the time there was no way I was getting a loan at that rate).
http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employ...
Sex is monetizable in some jurisdictions (almost nowhere in the US, but neverless somewhere!) and as a result all sexual acts have monetary value; it doesn't really matter where they are performed. Given that they have value someone must be giving up income by not charging, and someone else is receiving a gift which the other party is so generously waiving.
Do you let your partner see your tax return for fear that they claim you don't value them as much as you should? Or do you overvalue them and get overtaxed? Where's the fine line? Or do you agree amongst the two of you that for the purpose of your tax returns you're both "$5 blowjob on the corner for crack" material to keep each of your taxes to a minimum? Who's to argue?
Do the government have to send people around to rate you both to ensure you're not skipping out on taxes? "Well, she's a 10 who could easily score the $8,000 a night which is the going rate at Madame's High Class Escorts down the street. You've been living together for 6 years now and you've not claimed this as a taxable benefit. So you owe us back taxes on $17.52M - we don't care that you only earned $480,000 in that time. Also, we're really not understanding how she's with you knowing she could have made $17.04M more if she ditched you." and handing your partner their business card...
Even using "market rates" as this thread is suggesting is an incredibly subjective affair. Let's say you rent a room some place, at market rate for the area... what's market rate? It's 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, shared kitchen; but there's mold and clearly the roof leaks, none of the kitchen cupboards shut properly, the hot water doesn't work, the door lock is a wedge of wood in the door jam, you've seen cockroaches. It's rented out by a slumlord, but it's in a ritzy neighborhood. You're in a position where you have to rent this place, it's a dump, you're not sure if you weren't in this situation that anyone else in their right mind would rent it... the rent is $1,500 a month, because of the location.
Your friend down the street takes pity on you and lets you crash in his spare room to save you the indignity of living in this shit hole. Do you get taxed on the place you can afford or the rate your friend could get if he put his spare room up for rent? Given that he doesn't want to rent his room out to a stranger, but he's letting you crash there for free because he's your friend, what is the market rate for that room? The same as the one down the street which is only room for rent on the street? How does "market rate" get applied?
You're fundamentally correct, but it's worth unpacking the logic here. First, the donor pays the gift tax, unless an agreement is in place for the recipient to do so. The controlling case is Dickman v. Commissioner, 465 U.S. 330 (1984), and the basic idea is that, if you have a recognizable property right, foregoing the commercial use of that property in favor of providing it at a discounted rate creates a recognized gift. The gift amount is determined by the fair market rental value of the property. (This gets around the concern of the poster below about how you're supposed to declare income you didn't receive.)
Gift taxes are really just a method of checking large-scale tax evasion schemes where someone gifts assets to family members; to ameliorate the effects, there's a $14K/person/year exclusionary zone (plus other exemptions and methods to reduce liabilities) where you don't have to declare or worry about gifts.
Technically, couch-surfing probably wouldn't trigger the IRS' interest (not sure even they would try to figure out the fair-market value of a couch and a blanket), but giving someone a room (let alone the full use of a rental property) would in fact be a taxable event. However, it's unlikely, even in the Bay Area, that the value of that would rise above the $14K/person gift exclusion. In Dickman, the parents had to give a lot of interest-free loans to trigger the IRS' interest.
In Canada, if you owe the government less than $2 in taxes, they don't want the money.
You could possibly use minimum wage as a threshold for whether something realistically counts as commercial. That might be too high though.
Would it be inappropriate for the FAA to make up a line below which things are blatantly not real income in their eyes?
Who would be responsible for a national guideline anyway?
But I wouldn't imagine huge objection to saying that anything below a tenth of minimum wage per hour of work is a noncommercial hobby.
Yes. When the income exceeds your expenses it becomes commercial. That's seems like a very clear and bright line to separate the two without worrying about youtube ads.
That makes it not commercial. The IRS has rules about "hobby" which are basically the same: If you don't [eventually] make money after expenses and deductions, it's not a business.
For example there are exemptions written into the law about gain on selling a house, if you don't make too much extra.
Are you trying to ask me about making something commercial retroactively? i.e. you did not buy the jacket with the intent to sell it for more, and now suddenly it's worth more?
Or you can put the earnings inside a business, and then offset it with expenses. The business could pay you salary, or you can keep the money inside the business and realize it as capital gains tax later when you want.
You have many choices on how to organize the money.
Defining commerciality is difficult. It's one of the problems I have with the non-commercial variants of Creative Commons licenses. I have seen people on Flickr strongly object to NC photos being used on a blog with Adsense. And how about a large 501(c)(3) non-profit, perhaps one whose politics you disagree with? Take a broad enough view and very little is non-commercial.
Here's their rules for model aircraft, with a section on what does and doesn't count as hobby use.
http://www.faa.gov/uas/media/model_aircraft_spec_rule.pdf
Given that Youtube will use any excuse in the world to slap commercials on your video without your approval[1], and even it you do put ads on your video the "money" demonstrates that pan handling is a much more lucrative use of your time.
My argument would be this a) oversteps the FAA charter because it is incidental revenue, and b) this level of regulation per injurious to the drone companies and their customers who might wish to share their perfectly legal hobby with their friends over a free video sharing service.
[1] - "Oh wait, that bird tweet sounds suspiciously like this note in this copyrighted song, take it down, or let us put ads on it."
[1] http://classicalconvert.com/2007/07/the-stupidest-music-laws...
[1] There is a venue where this is already the norm, sports arenas. They explicitly forbid you from recording the event and re-showing it to anyone as part of the ticket "contract". Airlines just need to step up their game and add that to their terms and conditions.
I'd think this interpretation of commercial use would logically apply that as well (and be equally ridiculous).
I think we may need some case law, so hopefully some millionaire (or lawyer) who likes drone flying can push back against the FAA.
14 CFR 61.113 says "no person who holds a private pilot certificate may act as pilot in command of an aircraft that is carrying passengers or property for compensation or hire; nor may that person, for compensation or hire, act as pilot in command of an aircraft."
Pretty much the only exception that applies widely is the next part, which says "A private pilot may, for compensation or hire, act as pilot in command of an aircraft in connection with any business or employment if: (1) The flight is only incidental to that business or employment; and (2) The aircraft does not carry passengers or property for compensation or hire."
This basically means that if you are a pilot that works for a non-aviation related company, you may fly around as part of your job, for example for you and some coworkers to get to a meeting.
If the company or individual makes money directly off the flight, then I'm pretty sure it will never be considered incidental. See my other posts for some things that the FAA does not allow private pilots to do.
As asinine as these regs are, they are long-standing and I don't really see why having the pilot on the ground should make a fundamental difference to whether they're allowed to stand or not.
No one is stopping you from posting drone footage for private purposes, but if you are doing it for commercial purposes and reasons (whether you are directly paid or not, smart-ass) does not matter.
There is a reason this regulation is in place, because you as a private person flying around a quad-copter (see, you're not even calling it by its right name) for hobby and entertainment is a bit of a different thing than doing so for some commercial purpose and flying it every day, all day.
Quit being little brats that are pouting because you can't have what you want when you want it.
This is not appropriate for a Hacker News comment. Please follow the site guidelines:
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
EDIT: Even the updated HN headline still doesn't have it right. Neither the video nor the drone flight are illegal. The video just bumps the flight up to a higher tier of regulation from a hobby flight to a commercial flight. A better headline might be "FAA says monetized videos retroactively qualify drone flights as commercial flights."
Is the flight of the drone illegal then? Ridiculous logic.
We can use them to kill innocent children who happen to be at a party where some scumbag is hanging out, but don't film your birthday party and upload it to youtube! Don't try to sell your house with a video featuring using a drone to show the roof is in good condition! Oh no! This is the end!
After sort of passively watching it while doing other things, one of the episodes in the marathon was a "behind the scenes" sort of thing, where they showed that drone cinematography is used, basically, in like 80% of the filming done for that show.
They send the cameramen out in two-person teams, one to fly the drone, and the other to operate the camera, with an Oculus-looking visor on so that they can simply see the camera as through a viewfinder.
The "intent to generate income" is not only there, it's at some point in the past.
Not the guy in the article, though.
And thanks for noting an interesting episode to watch.
They would need to abide by Transport Canada's UAV regulations, and would most likely require a SFOC, which is possible to get if you're operating <400ft commercially. The FAA does not yet have a similar permitting process for commercial drone use.
EDIT: SFOC/Transport Canada regulations: http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/standards/general-reca...
I think people understand the rule just fine, and they are angry because they don't agree with the rule at all.
What the other four are thinking is beyond my ken.
I'm not sure I agree with that. As someone who has flown RC Helicopters for a long long time, one of the reasons I haven't gotten more into drones is a) they are "to easy" to fly and get boring [1] (if you don't believe me try flying a 60 size Gas RC Chopper with no gyros) and b) I can't make any money right now because of the "no commercial" rule.
While I don't think people are flying drones to make practically nothing on youtube.com (I think they want to make cool videos obviously) the fact is if you are going to have a rule that says "no commercial" and it hasn't been further defined then you have to stick to that.
Separately, there is a similar quasi rule with regards to using a domain name for commercial purposes (re: Trademark and UDRP filings) and often a domain name owner will lose a case if they don't have a good attorney and if the opposing party is able to take the ads and say "they are making money from my trademark". The amount of the money they are making doesn't really enter that much into the picture.
[1] I bought an AR Drone which I "flew" exactly one time. It's similar to the difference, if you are a skier, between the bunny slope and a black diamond (and I don't mean an East Coast USA black diamond..)
That said if you've never flown a gas rc you should give it a try (if you can afford it since they are typically more expensive than an electric especially when you crash and have to fix them..)
They have made the distinction before. If you build your own aircraft it can be certified as experimental. You can do anything you like with it that you might do with a Cessna, except commercial operations. I believe you can take a friend for a ride and split the fuel costs, but you may not profit. Why the type of plane matters is not clear to me. Likewise, flying a drone is legal, taking video is legal, why should profit from it be illegal? I don't know.
The potential for monetary reward for drone flights fundamentally changes the risks a pilot is prepared to take. If the conditions are marginal or if there's more people around than I feel comfortable with, I pack my gear up and go home. If there was a significant amount of money at stake in "getting the shot", I'd be _very_ tempted to push the limits further than I do as a hobbyist. If there was a large amount of money involved, and the risks of getting caught were low enough, it'd be very tempting to break the law to get the money. I choose to stay right out of that game for those reasons - but you only need to look at the paparazzi industry to know that when the money is right, people are happy to do impolite, dangerous, immoral, and illegal things to "get the shot". Even as a hobbyist multicopter builder/flier I'd rather not see "my hobby" being used that way - at least not without some accountability and consequences for people who choose to behave like that.
Suppose I go to a local RC meetup with a camcorder, film some people flying around, then upload it to youtube and monetize it?
What if the RC plane I am filming is owned by me, and flown by one of my friends?
What if the RC plane is a drone owned by me, and is flying itself while I film it?
What if the RC plane is owned and flown by me, while I film it?
What if all of these tapes are 20 years old, and I am only now digging them out of my attic to digitize and monetize them?
It seems to me there may be a decent amount of gray-areas around this whole concept.
To me, this suggests:
(1) the statute looks to the purpose of the flight when the flight occurred--later developments don't matter
(2) actions of third-parties not involved in the operation of the drone also don't matter
Remember, the FAA has the authority to regulate drone flight for commercial purposes. They don't have the authority to regulate Youtube, other people's filming, etc.
I see a few RC instructor business on google that has a commercial pilot as the instructor, I wonder if that is required.
See: http://amablog.modelaircraft.org/amagov/2015/03/18/ama-respo...
If you are interested, you should submit one.
That there could be legal challenges for these companies is rage-inducing. It is completely ludicrous. It's a waste of everyone's time and money (both taxpayers paying for the bureaucracy, and the companies defending the legal challenges), and does absolutely nothing for safety.
As a pilot who wants top live, i'd prefer people without training to stay out of the sky. Flying an extension of you (your drone) is even worse because you have even less interest in the safety since in a mid-air collision between planes, you die too. If your drone hits my plane - you do not die. Want to fly? Get a license. Want to fly a drone? Still get a license!
What you ask (FAA to leave the issue alone) is akin to letting 2 year olds drive 18-wheelers on the roads you drive your kids to school on? Feeling comfy with that?
To people who claim drones aren’t dangerous: YOU might have almost been killed by one last time you flew commercial: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/near-c...
Then I suggest you stay out of the sky, because we're not going to make it 100.000000% safe for you, ever. You don't own the universe above 0 AGL. Other people need to use it, too.
Nobody flying a drone below several hundred feet is, or should be, a hazard to you, as long as they're not doing so near an airport. Existing regulations are just fine in that regard without making up a bunch of horseshit about "monetization."
What you ask (FAA to leave the issue alone) is akin to letting 2 year olds drive 18-wheelers on the roads you drive your kids to school on? Feeling comfy with that?
The arrogance it must take to post something like that is simply breathtaking. You probably throw beer cans at bicyclists when you pass them on the road, too.
Likewise, I'll take the opposite extreme position that if you want to fly airplanes over populated locations, stay more than a couple thousand feet away as well, you're noisy and small aircraft and their pilots don't have quite the safety record that large ones do. How many people have quadcopter operators killed compared to small aircraft pilots? Seems like the answer should be that pilots of small aircraft, the planes vulnerable to small impacts and the pilots actually killing people should be kept away from the populace. What's the utility of allowing small aircraft to fly over my house anyways?
There's definitely room for both activities in the air.
Zero, meanwhile even Harrison Ford, an extremely qualified pilot, found a golf course when his engine gave out. Shit happens, and we need to plan accordingly instead of trying to prevent the shit in the first place. Oddly enough, I don't see worldwide media focusing on the private aviation hobby and how dangerous it is to everyone even though he landed on a fucking golf course. But no, one drone lands on the White House lawn and it's a national emergency with firmware updates pushed by DJI in response to ban Washington, D.C.
My work, as I point out elsewhere in this thread, is to educate folks about the positive uses for drone technology and the industry that's about to happen. The possibilities of extending our senses into the air around us are endless. I've had people come up to me while operating in public and threaten me and my equipment. People are shooting at drones with some frequency in the more backwater parts of the United States. I'm waiting for one of those bullets to land a few miles away and kill a child, because I predict the backlash will be against the fliers, not the shooters.
I often feel like I'm pushing, hopelessly against the avalanche of media fearmongering, because this technology has real, potent uses that should appeal to this community of startup tinkerers and hobbyists. We could be investing in automatic technology to build upon TCAS and integrate commercial UAS into that system, but we're not: we're trying to prevent the industry from ever happening.
Imagine the Wright Brothers trying to tinker in today's regulatory climate. Remember how all of us fought against classifying our hobby as "drones," even though it's technically correct, because most peoples' exposure to the word "drone" is centered around Hellfire-carrying platforms? Yeah, this is why.
Even if they do, they're mostly cardboard, whereas model airplanes have things like small engine blocks. I bet a 737 engine could ingest a model rocket without anyone noticing.
Even though the FAA has engine manufacturers like GE test the hell out of engines, it's tough to predict what will happen in the real world. Birds are a huge threat to aviation, both engine ingestion and windscreen collisions, and birds are mostly organic. (It goes without saying to stand the hell away from an operating jet engine even at idle, too, because humans do get ingested with fatal results.) I can't imagine an operating engine ingesting a drone or anything else with non-organic components would go well, and this is why I always advocate very strongly for safe drone operation.
Here's an intentional intake blade failure to ascertain whether the engine can contain the failure without threatening the aircraft; this is useful to see what happens if something is ingested that causes a catastrophic blade failure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAhjSviYVr8
Routine 400+ foot launches are more the purview of dedicated rocket launch events, which typically do go through extensive FAA clearance and such, and which have certification processes in place for those flying all but the lowest-powered rockets. Airspace is usually sanitized, and for good reason: these sorts of rockets tend to be much bigger than your ordinary backyard-launched Estes rockets, and very well could do significant damage to an airplane should a collision occur.
Tip: if you want to fly in a baseball field, and get your model back (not drift out of the park), stick with engines like "B6-4" or "C6-3" and models sized for those engines. If you fly a C6-5 or a D12-7, you had better have a good size farm to land in and a few friends to help spot :-)
http://www.hobbylinc.com/rockets/group/enginefacts.htm
Flying G size engines and up? Go to a special event in Nevada. Those can go a few thousand feet up. (or lift some heavy/dangerous frameworks)
What do you think about falconry?
I'm no pilot, but several of my coworkers are. Based on various conversations with them about flying (altitude clearances, ATC, etc.), I'd reckon you're severely over-reacting by calling for an outright ban on unlicensed RC aircraft flight. Altitude and airspace restrictions are reasonable; outright bans are not.
For an indepth analysis of the current proposal see http://www.kramerlevin.com/Unmanned-Aircraft-Systems-Alert-F...
What I'm curious about, though, is if the video is considered an artwork, can the FAA reasonably use their authority to classify the flight as commercial in nature?
As in, if the purpose of the recording was not simply for profit, but profit comes by way of the artistic contribution (e.g. editing, adding a soundtrack, creating a montage for entertainment) then it's not really a "commercial flight" but simply a personal use resulting in a commerically viable product. There are some hairs to be split in this distinction I think. I mean, taking a video out the window of a personal / private aircraft is suddenly under the FAA's purvue by implication? I don't think they would be wise to go that route, but if they are, that'd be good to know in a hurry. There are a LOT of YouTube videos that suddenly run afoul of an overly broad interpretation, I'd wager.
I'm not claiming to have the last word on this, but rather using my inherent stubbornness, creative background, and understanding of intellectual property / fair use / artistic case law as factors in the discussion. Hmm. Seems like a fun debate, and one that could be productive!
I mean if someone does consider their video a purely artistic endeavor, then they just shouldn't monetize it. If it's a case like here where the money would have been nominal, then it shouldn't matter. And if they have an issue with not monetizing it then they're looking to make money off of it, and so it would certainly be commercial use.
It's kind of like saying a person can go buy a lump of clay, but if they turn it into a vase, then they can't sell it.
Thus, the flight itself isn't being monetized. My point is that the FAA thinks it has authority to regulate artistic endeavors in this case, because they choose to define the flight's nature retroactively, when in essence, the flight itself is not the commodity, nor is the product of the flight the actual commercial product...I mean, tying a camera to a balloon and then making a video of that runs afoul of the FAA with this/your logic?
That is precisely how all regulations work that make a distinction between commercial and non-commercial activity.
Or let's say you upload the video to YouTube. This is your only video, you don't monetize it. But by YouTube hosting it, people go to YouTube where they will now see other videos on the side bar. They click one and it is monetized. Because of your video, YouTube made some money (even if it is a fraction of a penny).
What if you used the video in a portfolio to get a job. Maybe it was the pièce de résistance that won you the job. You used it to secure financial gain... should that count as commercial use?
2) Why does it matter if an unrelated third party can monetize other videos using your unmonetized video? You cannot control whether YouTube shows monetized videos in its suggested watching sidebar. You, the pilot, did not monetize your video, and that is what matters for purposes of the regulation.
3) Context matters. It could be treated as a commercial use, but it depends on the greater context of the video. If it was just a portfolio item to get a job as an employee, it likely would not rise to the level of commercial use. But if it was used as a portfolio item to get a job as a contractor/service provider providing drone footage, then it would most likely be treated as a commercial use.
The reason YouTube exists and that you can upload videos is so said third party can make money. If they weren't monetizing videos, including yours, the service wouldn't exist. In effect, you are using your video as a form fo payment for having the service. Is a single video that much in the grand scheme of things? No; probably a fraction of a penny. But it is still part of the transaction you are paying to use their service.
>3
Why would this context matter when monetizing it the context of how much money is made doesn't matter. Even if operating at a loss, making only pennies for every dollar spent, it still counts as monetizing?
Heck, what if flying a drone on my own time helps me relax, which makes me more productive at my normal desk job?
In my opinion, if you fly the drone with the intend to use the resulting footage in any commercial product (e.g. a _monetized_ youtube video), then that flight was commercial in nature. And because we can't measure intent, we have to assume that every flight that results in a commercial product was started with the intend of producing that product.
Maybe in some cases you can make a point that the flight was primarily for enjoyment and the video was just a byproduct. That might be a viable argument for a paraglider without established audience, but it's harder to defend for a drone with a camera strapped to it.
It seems to me this is a bit of a mixed bag here, and in which case there's a clear pattern, footage shot, non-commercial use first... meaning intent can be shown.
Quote from another article:
"Chris Servicky, a licensed helicopter pilot who helps run the company, says they never got the FAA’s letter and says that he talked to the FAA about trying to get certified and they said no.
'They don’t want you to make money off of it, so we sell the editing of the video,' he said."[1]
Saying monetized drone videos are legal is akin to saying meth is legal. Technically it is if you have a prescription, but it's near impossible to get a prescription, rendering that point moot when it comes to legality.
[1] http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/these-are-the-companies-the...
http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId...
I've seen plenty of SV real estate guys using drones for aerial shots for their listings, and since the revenue per deal is large in a residential real estate sale, unless the fine is substantial it'll just get rolled up into "cost of doing business".
[1] http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-...
Taking photos of real estate and then selling those photos to a real estate agent would still be illegal, thouigh.
Not with severe ADHD.
I am directly impacted by this due to my work to educate folks about proper, safe drone usage given media mischaracterization and fearmongering (like that recent Audi ad) about drones. All of my videos are artistic in nature and work to educate the public on the positive, market-generating usages of drones, such as aerial filmmaking, land survey, search and rescue, and other uses. Your comment smacks of lacking all of the context around FAA enforcement against drone fliers in recent years, and rushing to defend an agency that has burned all positive relationships it ever had with the hobbyist industry, both drones and otherwise.
The FAA has repeatedly missed deadlines to get its shit together, and is on track to miss another that was set by Congress for the end of this year. In the meantime, they've devoted their resources to pursuing drone fliers in court (and losing, quite dramatically, on taxpayer dollars) and sending toothless cease and desist notices like this. Nobody with an ounce of common sense can possibly conclude what you have, that a YouTube ad suddenly makes the flight commercial. If a private pilot records the view out of his cockpit window and then puts ads on the video on YouTube, he's not suddenly a (potentially unlicensed) commercial operator.
It follows that this action is just another excuse for the FAA to harass drone pilots and people attempting to build a multi-million dollar industry in the United States. Nothing about this is sane, and the FAA is repeatedly demonstrating that it's happy to service those with money and who can make noise in government -- the sudden (and rapid) creation of the certification exemption program for law enforcement after DHS started flying Predators over the border, for example -- while pinching the rest of us in court. You shouldn't make any attempt to defend the FAA; most people (me included) who really want to make something of UAS are already looking to other nations and have begun operating under more progressive regulatory schemes.
Irrelevant; what matters is if the person flying the plane makes money, not if unrelated third-parties do.
(1) posses flight footage; but
(2) you can't sell it.
That put these FAA rules into the regulation of media.
That sounds like something that will be litigated, IMHO.
I doubt a court will let that stand without some threshold of materiality. A flight that costs $5 or whater and makes $0.05 is not implicitly a commercial enterprise. Using basic IRS rules, that is a "hobby" activity not a business activity, by definition. That's at least one objective standard that could be brought to bear.
But who knows, maybe I'm missing something.
Monetizing the video later may be evidence of intent to use the drone commercially at the time the drone was flown, but its fairly weak evidence, since its quite possible for the intent to be formed after the drone was flown. The purpose of an act can't change retroactively, but the proceeds of an act carried out with one purpose may well have a different purpose than that of the act when it was carried out.
Now, obviously, in the case where the party flying the drone has an ongoing operation of monetizing videos that exists prior to the time the drone is flown, flies the drone, and quickly turns around and monetizes the video from the drone, the combination of factors is pretty strong evidence that the drone was used commercially rather than the video being commercialized after the drone was flown.
A certified private pilot can't even break even when sharing expenses. It's operating cost divided by number of occupants, and since the pilot is an occupant he must pay a fair share or it's a violation of his certification.
A certified commercial pilot can't even arrange the aircraft, or it's considered a charter operation, which operates under different regulations (FAR 135). So the commercial pilot has to be hired separately from the aircraft to engage in a general aviation for profit flight. Again, it's been this way for decades.
" In general, whenever we receive a complaint about an unauthorized UAS operation, we contact the operator and educate them about the regulations so they can comply,"
It seems to me that the above is more orientated towards repeat offenders than for a couple one-time pictures.
i.e. if a private pilot takes a friend along and the friend later sells said pictures to a magazine.
In terms of sharing costs (or accepting compensation) for rides, there is often a straight face test - is it genuinely and sincerely a shared interest in undertaking a flight, with a goal (outside the flight itself) for both the pilot and passenger. If not, then it's considered commercial. The FAA rightly or wrongly tends to view "nudge nudge wink wink" stuff on the conservative side.
* Go joyriding with a friend if they pay you more than their share of the operating expenses (gas, oil, airport fees, etc) of the flight.
* Have a friend ask you "hey, want to fly to <insert location> this weekend?" and then take him there. Doing so could be construed as you providing a transportation service, even if he pays you nothing.
Basically, what you can do is offer friends to come along on a flight you intend to make and will make even if they don't come, while paying no more than their fair share. If making the flight is contingent on them coming, you are providing a transportation service.
The fact that these activities would be perfectly fine if done in a car apparently matters not one whit to the FAA.
This seems needlessly burdensome and most likely net negative for the FAA.
Drone pilot generates footage, donates it for free to his shell company. Shell company monetizes video. Shell company has never operated an aircraft. Profit.
The law only makes sense for commercial activity directly related to flying, as far as I'm concerned.
The clear intent of the regulations are to prevent unregistered commercial use of drone footage. Thus, in this case it doesn't matter if the drone pilot doesn't commercialize the footage if he gives it to his own shell company* to commercialize. That would be illegal under the plain intent of the regulations. (It could be different if he gave it completely for free to an unrelated company and they commercialized it without his permission or knowledge.)
The right to fly a drone is a permissive license, so the burden to prove non-commercial use can be placed on the pilot. The pilot's intent not to commercialize the footage at the time of shooting can matter...but only if he can show that he did not intend to commercialize the footage at the time he recorded it. Thus, for example, a guy randomly shooting footage happens to capture a newsworthy event and later sells that footage to a news network will most likely be treated as not operating the drone commercially. However, if the guy flies his drone for the purpose of capturing a newsworthy event and later sells the footage, he will likely be treated as operating the drone commercially unless he can demonstrate a non-commercial intent.
I think he'd be up for that.
I wonder if this would apply equally to other drone-related video production techniques:
- A video of a drone, recorded from the ground
- A prop is carried by a drone but the drone never appears in the frame
- The audio is recorded by a drone, but not video
- A camera is dropped from a drone but doesn't begin recording until after release
- The drone's engines are powered off during recording
It matters not one bit to the FAA whether the video is taken by a drone, a balloon, a human pilot, a monkey, or whatever.
If you put fins on it, though, one could argue that you have now designed it to travel through the air, and hence you now become subject to the FARs.
More concerning to me are those small-scale "commercial" operations that I'm seeing more and more: wedding photographers using quadcopters, or realtors taking "eagle-eye" photographs. These are "commercial" operations (even though by every other definition they would fall into the hobbyist definition[1]), so according to the FAA, they need one of two things[2]:
1. A section 33 exemption, of which only 44 have been granted. 2. A Special Airworthiness Certificate (SAC) from the FAA.
Maybe the Small UAS Rule will change this for the better, but right now, this seems ridiculous.
[1] https://www.faa.gov/uas/model_aircraft/ [2] https://www.faa.gov/uas/civil_operations/
Depending on the UAV, that could present a significant danger to them, especially if he lost control of it. The FAA letter makes reference to this at the bottom of page one.
Flying in that manner is against the regulations of the AMA.
I suspect that the reason the FAA letter even mentions the word "commercial" is because there are basically three ways to fly UAV that the FAA considers legal:
1. Government -- I don't know much about this one.
2. Commercial -- requires the appropriate licenses and permits from the FAA with strict guidelines on the restrictions for any given flight.
3. Hobby -- The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 has a few specific requirements to be eligible to fly as a Hobbyist. The first is that the flight does not result in any revenue (with a few very small and fuzzy exemptions) and the second is "the aircraft is operated in accordance with a community-based set of safety guidelines and within the programming of a nationwide community-based organization"
Since he was flying in a way that would not be in accordance to the AMA's regulations, and he isn't flying as an authorized government agent, the FAA is likely putting him in the only remaining category, commercial.
All that said, I despise the way the FAA is treating UAV operators. Everything from their absurd interpretations of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 to their glacial pace at actually making commercial flights a reasonable possibility.
But it seems all they care about is that you could actually compete with maned planes' pilots.
I fly my drones against the law every single day because the law is completely outdated in my country(Spain) because basically they copy the stupid US model.
In theory I have to put a deposit of 3000 euros for flying a less than 1 kg drone,and register my activity, and what not for a 5 meters above ground recordings. The same as I would have to if I flied a more than 600Kgs helicopter. Non sense.
Companies are using drones anyway, they just don't tell anybody. Proof that I am using a drone and not a crane.
This does not fly (heh) with my current understanding of "commercial use" in regards to photography, which I wouldn't consider much different than video.
I can enter a US National Park without any specific permit and take a photo of a natural feature. I can sell prints of this photo for a profit. This is not a "commercial use" of the photo.
I can't enter said park without permit and with the intention to shoot promotional photos of my new super nature product. These photos would be used to sell said product. This is a commercial use.
The distinction is profiting from the work itself or using the work to generate profit on something else.
But today they are spending time and resources deciding what to do with drone videos being monetized or not?? Clearly they have deviated from their original intent...
I don't know when this pattern will stop happening. You're _never_ going to move to a floating/flying platform in the middle of the ocean/in space and cyberjack into a utopian free-for-all.