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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.

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Remember the video where the GoPro falls off a skydiver's helmet and lands in a pig pen? Is the falling considered flying, in this case?

Interesting question, I don't know whether skydiving is regulated by the FAA. You don't need a certificate at all to do that.

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.

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