FAA Says Drones May Be Used For Fun... But Not For Profit
from the because-how-dare-we-allow-innovation dept
Earlier this year, we wrote about a court saying that the FAA's rules that banned the use of drones for anything commercial were overstepping the FAA's mandate, and making it clear that such drones should be considered legal. The FAA has appealed, and in an attempt to drive home its point that not a single potential commercial use of a drone is legal, the FAA has doubled down by clearly laying out what's not allowed. Lots of people are pointing out that the FAA's claims are likely to ground the high profile plans by Amazon to deliver packages by drone, but it's some of the other things that are on the prohibited list that strike me as even more ridiculous:
But... the rest of the items in the list all seem very troubling to me. None of those seem like cases where there's likely to be any interference with aircraft or any other kind of problem. Drone use for real estate videos is increasingly common and something that actually seems like a very good idea. Here's an example of one such video:
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Filed Under: commercial use, crops, drones, faa, real estate, regulation, tacocopter
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A new legal way
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Re: A new legal way
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Re: Re: A new legal way
As far as I can figure, the only reason you'd want to do so would be for personal enjoyment. That is, unless you work for the Department of Defense.
Lasers and Rockets on drones only fall into two categories, personal enjoyment or the first Nobel Peace Prize winner with kill-lists. Professional hitmen wouldn't use a drone with lasers and rockets...since sniper rifles, pistols with silencers, and uranium pellets in specialized umbrella launchers are cheaper and easier to dispose of, and don't tend to attract unwanted attention.
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Re:
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Free market? Land of Free?
Want to cook cupcakes for others to buy? You must have a 2nd kitchen dedicated to that!
If you think this is a free nation... let me tell you something. You are both ignorant and stupid! Ignorant for not understanding what freedom means and stupid for continuing to remain ignorant despite the overwhelming evidence that we are no longer free!
With all of these 3 damn fucking letter organizations writing policy and rules without any real Congressional oversight has removed any semblance of freedom and liberty we 'think' we have!
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Taking 'hobby gardening' to a whole new level...
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Re: Taking 'hobby gardening' to a whole new level...
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Dear FAA - Please read YOUR OWN WEBSITE!!!
Last bullet under "Our Values"
Innovation is our signature. We foster creativity and vision to provide solutions beyond today's boundaries.
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You missed the fine-print.
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Re: Dear FAA - Please read YOUR OWN WEBSITE!!!
Last bullet under "Our Values"
Innovation is our signature. We foster creativity and vision to provide solutions beyond today's boundaries."
...Priceless.
Coming up next: shape of Pentagon is unconstitutional.
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Farm crops is the most puzzling
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Re: Farm crops is the most puzzling
However, there are many instances where a manned plane would be impractical such as photographing a wedding or reception from an otherwise impossible angle.
I do not have enough information yet to determine whether this is controlable with laws already on the books.
The old saying that "you can't fight city hall" isn't because city hall is or isn't wrong but that the taxes you and everyone else paid to them give them a huge battle chest vs your savings. And even if you win, their battle chest will be renewed, your savings are just gone.
So, pick your battles. And good flying.
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What have they been smoking at the FAA? I honestly want to know so I can avoid it, that shit sounds bad. Never go to that dealer again.
*I only point that out because we were going to do this where I work.
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If you can't use a drone to check the crops if you're making money off of the crops, then I'm not allowed to use a drone to check a fest if I'm making money off of the fest. Using the video to promote the event would just double the violation.
But where does it end? If I buy a drone, can I fly it around and put it up on my Youtube channel; "Look at me, I'm flying a drone"? Can there be ads on it? Can I have ads on other videos on my channel?
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What if Profit is Fun?
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Hollywood Accounting to the rescue!
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But, but, but...
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I could see possibly having some licensing and limits in heavily populated areas or near airports, but the FAA is nuts for a broad banning on them.
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Because electricity doesn't work magically like that.
For the drone to charge it would have to complete the circuit - landing on one wire doesn't complete the circuit. If it did pictures of birds on a wire would not exist.
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Re: Re:
Alternately, placing a conductor in a magnetic field creates an electric current. This is how generators work.
When you combine the two principals, you get what is commonly called inductive charging. you see it a lot in electric tooth brushes and it is becoming more popular for charging cellphones and other portable devices.
So yes, electricity DOES "work magically like that". The birds are not fried because flesh does not induce a current.
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You do know that living robots aren't real, right?
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Nope.
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http://www.recycle.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/Corrosion-Control-AC-Power-Lines.pdf (Page 3, Figure 2)
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model rockets and such?
I understand the whole "under control" part to help define a drone, but how much control is considered under control?
Can I send up a balloon with a camera that take photos of a house for sale or a field that needs watering?
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Re: model rockets and such?
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Re: Re: model rockets and such?
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FAA takes an easy out.
A better approach would be to set usage limits.
All users would be banned from some air space, such as near airports. Minimum altitude requirements above private property would be defined.
Additional restrictions set by local governments would be specifically allowed. Including restrictions on overflight of private property.
All users would be responsible for any damage they caused; state laws would cover this part.
Commercial users would be required that the drone be labeled with the owner and operators IDs and contact information.
The use of a drone for surveillance of private property requires a court issued warrant. Surveillance for commercial or private purposes would be considered trespass or stalking.
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Re: FAA takes an easy out.
The FAA is not banning ALL drones, just the ones that help make profit. Apparently drones used for Fun are perfectly safe at the same altitudes and within the same airspace as the unsafe drones used for profit.
I agree that the FAA might need to set usage limits on drones, for everyone's safety. But the Fun vs Profit intent of the drone would seem to have no effect on those safety issues.
But what do I know. At the risk of being called a conspiracy nut, I might suggest that the FAA somehow wants to separate commercial usage . . . in order to extract revenue in the form of some kind of licensing or approval fees.
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Re: Re: FAA takes an easy out.
Fun = good (doing things that benefit yourself only)
Profit = bad (doing things that benefit other people enough that they're willing to pay money for them)
/sarc
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Re: Re: FAA takes an easy out.
You sure this isn't about the existing drone manufacturers ensuring they have no competitors...
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A person photographing a property or event and selling the photos to someone else
Because that gives free reign to any idiot to go around flying in residential areas without regards to privacy or safety of the people next door people put up privacy fences for a reason , oh and peeping tom's , and pedos flying nearby schools .. make the rules and then let those who rely on drones for their business model figure out what they need to do to make a case for their product ... this is actually smart rule/law making , the foundation is put in place and shouldn't need to add exemptions for business models until asked or needed.
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Our government is not supposed to create broad, sweeping restrictions on what people can do and then make people ask for exceptions. If that were the case, we would all be living in small boxes right now and "might" be able to get out for fresh air if it served the public interest.
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the ground work was laid with the Constitution and yes our Government by the People did set limits , as we see now our very own are pushing those limits on privacy already ... so are people supposed to put a sign on their roof saying OPTOUT.
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The US constitution does not specify any right to privacy. The Bill of Rights does specify specific rights to privacy from the government about religious beliefs, government searches, and self-incrimination (sort of privacy related, I guess).
You cannot opt-out of being filmed or viewed in public places. Like it or not, the OUTSIDE of our homes is most often public. Now, I could see possibly expanding trespassing laws to include the area over someone's property (50 to 100 feet maybe?), but the FAA is specifically barring use of drones OVER YOUR OWN PROPERTY.
And if you don't want your house filmed by drones, I think there is a very simple solution - put a large television on it and play a Disney movie in a loop. Anyone caught filming it will end up with the DHS coming after them for copyright infringement.
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But then they'd get you for a "public performance" since it was visible to someone outside your house.
But seriously, I agree that you should be able to use drones over your own property so long as they are at altitudes that won't conflict with "normal" aircraft. On the flip side, you shouldn't be able to use them on anyone ELSE'S property at those altitudes without their permission.
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." - 9th Amendment.
We have a right to some privacy whether it's specified or not. It doesn't extend to not being photographed while walking down the street, but it should extend to not having flying cameras peeping into your 26th floor apartment... and maybe even your first floor apartment.
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i'm pretty sure there are already laws on the books regarding peeping toms and pedos
and a privacy fence? you are outside! you have no privacy (for better or worse)
aside from that are you saying it is ok to be a pedo as long as it's for profit?
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Um, no it doesn't. Peeping Tom laws already exist. No reason to create new, restrictive laws on perfectly reasonable, legitimate activity. Just enforce the laws we already have.
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For all your righteous indignation you seem to have missed that the FAA has not done anything to prevent that from happening. All they done is said you can't profit from flying in residential areas without regards to privacy or safety. It's a stupid ruling because it does nothing a allay any of the genuine concerns of drone use, but bans some genuinely beneficial uses for no good reason.
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Action vs Intent
If I take aerial video of my house for personal use and I notice that my neighbor's commercial fields are dry, can I give him that information verbally?
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Re: Action vs Intent
You are taking an aerial video of your house and notice that your neighbor's commercial farm needs watering. You catch a little boy in the street playing basketball and he amazingly throws the ball, it bounces off of a car, then a truck, then a tree, and goes in the hoop and then bounces over a cement wall. You then fly your drone (with some crazy lift capacity), pick up the basketball, and fly it back to the little boy.
When your drone returns, you post the video on YouTube. At the block party later that evening, you mention to your neighbor that his fields need water, your other neighbor gives you a $5 bill for returning his son's basketball, and the drone video, now getting millions of hits, happened to have picked up some music in the background and ContentID automatically monetized it for the artist. And someone else noticed from the YouTube video that your house had a for-sale sign I front of it and made you an offer.
I'm pretty sure you will have to go to jail for several hundred years.
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Re: Action vs Intent
If those crops didn't want to be observed, they should have been inside behind closed doors, where they have a constitutional right to privacy, and I would need to get a warrant to inspect them. Otherwise, all the evidence of the lack of proper irrigation of said crops would have to be thrown out, unless I received prior permission from the crops to be searched in the first place. (Do you have any idea how hard it is to get permission from crops?)
So, if the FAA comes around accusing you of using your drone in violation of FAA rules, just say, "No, your wrong. I am not in violation of any FAA rules." If they ask why, say, "Because Terrorism! That's why!"
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Re: Re: Action vs Intent
"I don't konw what you're talking about. I LOVE flying my drone around the farm. That my crops have improved are due to trade secrets that I don't have to share with you."
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The Ultimate "Fun" Drone -- a Peeping Tom that Seattle Police say is legal.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/06/24/seattle-woman-drone-apartment-washington/11 339835/
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Two words:
If it's close enough to be taken out by a squirt gun, and either on, or looking in to private property, I'd say they should be fair game.
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Re: The Ultimate "Fun" Drone -- a Peeping Tom that Seattle Police say is legal.
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Re: Re: The Ultimate "Fun" Drone -- a Peeping Tom that Seattle Police say is legal.
This is certainly not true as a blanket statement. If you have your windows open, you have no expectation of privacy from people who are in a place they are legally entitled to be looking through your window.
I suspect that the Seattle cops were just giving the caller the brush-off because they didn't want to bother with it. Either that, or the laws in Seattle are dangerously archaic. In most other cities, it is absolutely illegal to use your model aircraft to hover outside of someone's window and peek in.
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Re: Re: Re: The Ultimate "Fun" Drone -- a Peeping Tom that Seattle Police say is legal.
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Birds and Insects
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Re: Birds and Insects
Carrier pigeons - those all need to be grounded.
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Re: Re: Birds and Insects
Oh, and expect a permanent grounding order for penguins. This would follow FAA logic to the extreme
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United States v. Causby
In US v. Causby (1946), the court said By this logic, the FAA would certainly be exceeding its authority by forbidding real estate and crop photography.
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it's simple
The true test of dronership will occur the first time one of these falls out of the sky & strikes and kills a u.s. citizen on u.s. soil.
As an aside, are you going to do a writeup on the assassination memo? I'd really like to read your thoughts in particular on legality et all.
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CC-NC drones?
See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode
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As a model R/C hobbyist
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Re: As a model R/C hobbyist
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Don't be shocked to see new regulations for "personal" drones that flight limit them to 100-200 feet.
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Why new regulations about this? What's wrong with the regulations that already exist? They include all kinds of things. There's already regulations limiting altitude and prohibiting flying in in controlled airspace. The regulations are quite strict within a certain distance from critical things like airports, too.
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Say I use my drone to take personal pictures of a naturescape, which I post online. A journalist or some such approaches me and say "Gee those are some fine landscapes. I sure would love to buy them from you." If I sell them, does that mean the sale is illegal because my drone was not engaged in personal use, but commercial?
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Not right, not fair, not legal.
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Except that even that rationale is bogus since doing it for free is "allowed".
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,,Well Mr. Prosecutor while it is true that I do have a contract with company A said contract cleary states that I am to use a model aircraft to move a box from point to point without any kind of compensation. And as the list of emails show in each case they only asked for one box to be moved. Oh and by the way while we are all here (looks at CEO of company A) I want to remind you that my wife is selling her latest paintings next week. Sorry for that completly unrelated remark."
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Rationale for Commercial vs. Hobby
Basically, the idea is that hobbyists have a vested interest and personal incentive to protect their expensive equipment. They aren't making money from the equipment, and therefore are less likely to take risks that could be dangerous to other people, less likely to trespass where the UAV could be lost or unrecoverable, etc. (Note that property owners do NOT have an obligation to allow a UAV owner to retrieve a UAV that crashes or lands on private property.) Basically, they consider the hobby industry self-regulating because people want to keep their expensive toys nice.
On the other hand, commercial interest can incentivize risky behavior. If the commercial incentive (on-time deliveries, getting the right paid shot, getting financially rewarded for risky stunts) outweighs the risk to the equipment, the company or individual is more likely to take risks that could be dangerous to other people, property, aircraft etc. Things like flying through private property or densely-populated areas, cutting through no-fly zones, etc.
It's my understanding that this ban is a stopgap, and that the FAA plans within the next couple years to issue actual commercial regulations for UAVs. Of course, those regulations will likely lead to regulatory capture, reduced innovation, and a significant delay in the rollout of this technology. But no government administration has ever seen a thing without wanting to control it, so here we are. It could be worse. They could have banned them completely, and I'm somewhat surprised they didn't.
Last, for those making foolish comments like, "Peeping Toms have free reign to do whatever they want!" are foolish. We have laws for that. Using a UAV instead of a handheld camera doesn't make it legal. Rather than assume pre-crime, just prosecute actual offenders using the laws we already have.
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Re: Rationale for Commercial vs. Hobby
Which is absolutely true. I fly mid-size R/C helicopters. I once computed how much each crash has cost me. It was, on average, about $100.
Costs aside, a crash also ends your flying day early unless you have a spare bird. That's an even bigger punishment than the expense!
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FAA regulation of orbiting lobbyists
They're sure fishing for something, and they'll get it, too. I bet the lobbyists are circling even now.
Hey, we need the FAA to regulate lobbyists! Just think:
Legal lobbying: Talking to the legislator about the weather.
Illegal lobbying: Talking to the legislator about blocking NWS from publishing reports for free, thus damaging the weather reporting market.
Legal lobbying: Talking to the legislator about closely held personal beliefs.
Illegal lobbying: Talking to the legislator about the closely held personal beliefs of a client.
Legal lobbying: Writing a law for the legislator about child pornography.
Illegal lobbying: Writing a law for the legislator about increasing Medicare payouts to private insurers...when your client is a private insurer.
Legal lobbying: Reviewing the legislator's voting history for amusement.
Illegal lobbying: Reviewing the legislator's voting history to determine if he should get campaign funding from a client.
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Was at a trade show this last week....
Also, another angle to this is the fact that the FAA has set up test grounds for commercial drone use. They are likely not ready to pass judgement on the impact of such use, and if it's like any other application of bureaucracy it'll be a while before they are.
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This appear to me that FAA is making crap up just so they can turn around and attempt to sell license to these commercial companies. I am many would opt-in and just pass the cost increase along (with a 40% 'service fee' increase) to the clients.
At least the FAA should have waited a bit until the market was flush with cash. Then they could open the debate and vast amounts of money could be spent on lobbyist and various other forms of influences.
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Drone patrol
Seriously, though, I would really like to know how the FAA would go about enforcing any of this. If I take an aerial photo of, say, the Grand Canyon how would the FAA know if I took it using my quad copter-mounted Go-Pro or from a chartered plane? Or if I took a picture of a house using a toy plane or a crane?
HMMMMM
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Re: Drone patrol
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IDEAL Homes
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Video or Photos
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plea to the faa
If I program my camera to take a photo in two seconds, and throw it in the air, and it snaps a photo, is that an unmanned aeriel vehicle?
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Indoor flight and commercial use.
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Has anyone considered?
Does it strike anyone (If I've just missed it please forgive me) that the FAA is protecting commercial pilots that have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in training and equipment? I mean if I were a pilot that made my living filming commercial events via my helicopter and now all of a sudden a 20 something could replace me with a $2000 investment and 15 minutes of flight training... I'd be pretty scared about my bottom line.
It just seems so odd to me to be so adamant about crushing any commercial use of drones that there's got to be an underlying motivation beyond "safety." I mean, I'm flying a 2.5 pound piece of plastic in an empty field to get some cutaway shots for my video.. that's illegal?? There's more to it.. we figure that out and we may have a chance.
Cheers
Rick
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What's all the fuss - we're NOT FLYING DRONES
An unmanned aircraft must meet certain criteria to be classified as a drone.
Most aerial drones (not all however) are fully autonomous; meaning they are essentially flying robots and need no human intervention for flight control. Yes, humans program a flight mission and can usually take over control when needed, but most of the time they are flying fully autonomously.
The next distinction is the single most important one that no true drone can be without. It comes from the mention of the word "mission" in the first point. All true flying drones MUST perform a specific flight mission; whether that be aerial reconnaissance, atmospheric data acquisition, search & rescue operations, or blowing things & people up. In short, they must perform some specific job and have a commercial or military application. Again, none of us in the hobby are doing that, we fly for fun & recreation and "drone" is simply the most incorrect thing anyone can call any of our RC aircraft.
If you use a quad copter or other RC aircraft for commercial use (ie. aerial photography), in most countries you will need special permission or a certificate to do it legally. This still doesn't mean you are flying a drone however. No governing body (that I can find anyways) calls these "drone certificates", they call them UA (unmanned aircraft) certificates.
The majority of true aerial drones weigh over 25 kg (generally much more in fact) and can fly for hours on end - can your little sub 2kg RC quad-rotor do that? No, well guess what - it's not a drone.
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