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Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

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."

View on HN

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.

[1] http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/these-are-the-companies-the...

They are hard to get, but they have issued some permits:

http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId...

I wonder how large the fines are.

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.

[1] http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-...

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.

No license yet, but they're giving waivers for commercial use: https://www.faa.gov/uas/legislative_programs/section_333/

> Technically it is if you have a prescription, but it's near impossible to get a prescription

Not with severe ADHD.

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 could afford it, I just don't have the time (or car) to get somewhere in/near the Bay Area where I could fly one. Also I would be terrified.

>> 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.

It is possible to not intend to monetize a private flight but in any case it will be illegal to accept payment for the flight in the future.

And that scenario (if the legal status changes retroactively) is equally ludicrous.

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.

There is though.

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.

Does legality really matter if you are the point where money is the dominating factor? Funny you mention paparazzi...

Yes, because legal penalty becomes an expected cost of the activity.

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?

> 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.

That is precisely how all regulations work that make a distinction between commercial and non-commercial activity.

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.

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.

You can sell your copyright and be fined for unauthorized commercial flight. There's no incompatibility here.

What if the footage was shot of the drone, not by it?

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.

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.

You still own copyright on the footage, and it can't be used without your permission.

If you mark the footage as public domain?

It would only work if the courts think it should work. Contrary to popular belief legal 'hacks' can work, but there is no guarantee.

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.

See: http://amablog.modelaircraft.org/amagov/2015/03/18/ama-respo...

If you are interested, you should submit one.

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.

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.

Irrelevant; what matters is if the person flying the plane makes money, not if unrelated third-parties do.

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.

0 is a good one

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...

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.

Or Henry Ford.. If the car were inveted today I'm pretty sure it would be illegal. Again, 40k people die per year in cars yet no one blinks.

Don't model rockets routinely go much higher than the 400 feet the FAA has traditionally limited hobby aircraft to?

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 :-)

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)

Is a 1kg drone at 300 feet operated by a stupid person really much worse than a stupid 1kg bird at 300 feet?

What do you think about falconry?

The answer here is obviously to just ban birds (except for penguins and ostriches and emus, since they're effectively flightless).

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.

For an indepth analysis of the current proposal see http://www.kramerlevin.com/Unmanned-Aircraft-Systems-Alert-F...

> Not saying I agree with the rule, [...]

I think people understand the rule just fine, and they are angry because they don't agree with the rule at all.

> 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.

so you can

(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.

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.

When someone is paying you to fly that drone, definitely.

Not the guy in the article, though.

And thanks for noting an interesting episode to watch.

And I guarantee that a) the drone operator doesn't have a CPL, and b) that the FAA hasn't said a word to the show producers.

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.

EDIT: SFOC/Transport Canada regulations: http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/standards/general-reca...

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