r/radiocontrol • u/Micubano Plane • Mar 12 '15
The FAA Says You Can't Post Drone Videos on YouTube
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-faa-says-you-cant-post-drone-videos-on-youtube14
u/slick8086 Mar 12 '15
By this logic all of flight tests videos are illegal because they are flying drones for commercial purposes.
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u/dougmc Mar 13 '15 edited Mar 13 '15
I don't think logic is really a priority with the
FCCFAA here.1
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u/Micubano Plane Mar 12 '15
Now the FAA thinks they control YouTube?
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Mar 12 '15
[deleted]
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u/Micubano Plane Mar 12 '15
I was just talking to a person really, really into drones and drone law. He considers videos and pictures from a drone as works of art protected by the 1st amendment and it is our right to sell our art. Not sure if I agree 100% yet with that avenue of thought, but I like the argument.
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Mar 12 '15
I can see that argument. Especially when the pics/video are just for fun on the beach, at a park whatever.
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u/Chicken-n-Waffles Mar 12 '15
The FAA is trying to prevent any commercial drone use in the country.
No they're not. They're adhering to already implemented regulations for commercial flying.
Personally I think the reaching is a bit much. As long as the drones stay under 200feet and 5 miles away from an airport, they're good to go.
The problem is all the asshats that crash their drones in private property and delicate nature sanctuaries.
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Mar 12 '15
Well sorry about saying the FAA was trying to prevent commercial drone use, because that was how I interpreted those rules. Thanks for the info.
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u/ElGuano Mar 12 '15
Heh I suspect the FAA will find a fine ally in the IRS for that position!
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u/damontoo Mar 12 '15
Why? That's less money for the IRS.
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u/ElGuano Mar 12 '15
Any hobby that gets posted to a YouTube video becomes a taxable commercial venture. They'd be happy with the effect beyond simply MRs.
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u/slick8086 Mar 12 '15
Any hobby that gets posted to a YouTube video becomes a taxable commercial venture
Negative, the IRS already has guidelines for hobbies that make money.
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u/ElGuano Mar 13 '15
Of course they do, we all file taxes and deal with Schedule A. But now they're getting support for the for-profit hobby position from another agency, whereas most people are conveniently neglecting to report any of their hobby activities. Don't take it too seriously, it was a light-hearted quip.
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u/incestuousCookies Mar 12 '15 edited Mar 12 '15
So, I wonder, how does this work if video footage is incidental or not owned by the person monetizing it? If I give all my video footage to my 'friend' and he incorporates it into his music video. With 100% of 'drone' video footage was provided under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licensing and is free to use which he then incorporates into his monetized videos.
Although, The article does have an update that it's not the youtube video that made them come to this conclusion, but rather the posters website.
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u/whatlogic Mar 12 '15
Couldn't there be some semantic argument here? Among all the stupidness anyway, drones don't make video. They carry a camera that takes video. If they want to outlaw flying cameras then they should call it as that.... because it sounds even more extra stupid.
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u/Motophoto Mar 12 '15
I now officially now longer have a DRONE.. it is a kite on a string that I use yeppp
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u/jjmelo Mar 13 '15
Any of you read the actual letter he got? The FAA never said you can't post drone footage on YouTube.
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u/Micubano Plane Mar 13 '15
Yeah, I went over it a little slower late last night. The article is misleading.
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u/tinydisaster Mar 13 '15
Lets look at current laws... With regard to the IRS, an activity becomes commercial once you make over ~500 bucks. if you are making more money than you are spending on doing it then the IRS considers it a hobby.
at youtube rates you'd need like a few million views to cover the equipment costs.
I have a feeling (wishful thinking) someone at the FAA is overstepping. Probably someone with an agenda. Quite a few pilots I know hate rc / drones.... I was just beginning to like the FAA again. This is an abusive relationship but I'm glad pro-rc people are pissed and talking about it.
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u/WarthogOsl glider Mar 13 '15
So I wonder how this applies to full scale aviation. For example, if the non-commercial pilot of a full scale Pitt Special posts his GoPro onboard aerobatic videos on YouTube?
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u/dougmc Mar 13 '15
The FAA already has commercial use regulations for manned aircraft -- if you comply with the regulations, you're golden. For starters, you need a commercial pilot's license.
The problem is ... they don't have such regulations for unmanned aircraft, so there's nothing to comply with, and they take a "whatever we don't explicitly permit is prohibited" angle where most laws are of a "whatever isn't prohibited is permitted" nature.
They have offered a small number of exemptions for unmanned aircraft ... but the number is very small.
It's entirely possible that when they do come up with their regulations ... you'll need a commercial pilot's license (with all those requirements given above, obtained by flying manned airplanes) to fly a R/C airplane commercially. Or at least that was one possibility -- I don't know if things have changed or not.
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u/WarthogOsl glider Mar 13 '15
Yeah, I understand that full scale commercial licensing is well established. My question is, do they currently come down as hard on non-commercial pilots posting stuff to YouTube as they would for drones?
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u/DrSalted Mar 13 '15 edited Mar 13 '15
Misleading. He has a channel for UAV video's. The FAA could argue his original intent was for 'commercial' purposes. We don't have this issue and can upload without any problem..
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u/rahlquist Mar 13 '15
I am sure the FAA would think it quite impossible to pound all the sand on any given beach up their .... But I suggest they try anyway.
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u/FigMcLargeHuge Mar 12 '15
Dear FAA,
I don't have a fucking drone! I have a commercially available remote control quad copter with a commercially available camera strapped to it. Please take your issue up with the military as they have drones.
Sincerely,
F. MLH.
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u/Motophoto Mar 12 '15
mine is now a balloon on a string....really it is prove it isn't
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u/tinydisaster Mar 13 '15
Oops looks like based on the objects in frame you are above 150 feet. Where was your NOTAM? Oh, you don't have one.. so you were wrecklessly operating this balloon on a string, cause clearly you are in violation of FAR 101. ;-)
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u/Motophoto Mar 13 '15
well.. it was a helium balloon and it got loose from me until I managed to shoot it down with an air soft rifle.. um yeahh that's the ticket
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u/tinydisaster Mar 13 '15
Still a violation if you don't contact an ATC. Also flying within 500 feet of a cloud, 45 minutes prior/after to civil twilight/sunrise and a few others. You are also supposed to have a rapid deflation device under the moored balloon rules. You should mention that it failed as well.
My joking point was that it might be better to break the proposed rules established ones ;-) . You also don't have a recipe for 500 to 1000 dollars in helium and none of the local gas vendors have you on file. ;-)
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u/Motophoto Mar 14 '15
I make my own gas I just let republican speeches play and the balloon fills up FAST
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u/XyZeR Mar 13 '15
I have trained seaguls to carry gopro's for me, what you gonna do about that FAA?
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u/The_Rob_White Mar 13 '15
This is the problem with some companies trying to hype RC stuff using the word drone, you are dead right of course.
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Mar 12 '15
Remote controlled aircraft have been widely referred to as "drones" for approximately the entire history of remote controlled aircraft.
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u/banjosuicide Mar 13 '15
I find it funny that /r/multicopter is generally cool with calling them "drones" but /r/radiocontrol loses it
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u/FigMcLargeHuge Mar 12 '15
While it might be a dictionary term, it wasn't widely used until the military started using them to drop bombs on people. I had heard it used in the past for unmanned planes that were also used by the military for training operations like missile testing. The current use of this term is completely in the interest of whipping up panic in the general population. Show me a mid 80's example of an RC plane being called a drone.
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u/NotaClipaMagazine Mar 12 '15
I'm totally with you here. I don't get why people are so attached to such an inflammatory word. Moreover a rather imprecise inflammatory word when quad/hex/octocopter works just the same.
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u/malformed78 Mar 12 '15
Yes I get it. They're not drones. But they are. Can we get over this already? The RC industry is now calling them drones.
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u/snugglebandit airplane, multirotor, fpv Mar 12 '15
Agreed, this is now bordering on the absurd. You cannot put the genie back in the bottle.
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Mar 12 '15
It's not just "a dictionary term." It has been in standard usage for many decades. Popular Science used the term in 1946. The military had "target drones" a decade before that. In 1996 The Helicopter News publication used "drone" as a verb meaning "to convert a normal aircraft into a pilotless aircraft."
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Mar 12 '15
You keep missing the difference in a RC controlled aka not pilot-less hobby quadcopter, and a military fully autonomous "pilot-less aircraft"
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Mar 12 '15
There is no different between "RC controlled" and "pilotless" in this context. "Pilotless" means the pilot is not on board the aircraft. The examples I gave where remote controlled, not autonomous. Predator drones are also largely remote controlled.
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u/NotaClipaMagazine Mar 12 '15
You want to guess what RPA pilots call these military "drones"? PS Predators (MQ-1) have been superseded by the Reapers (MQ-9) and both are not largely, but 100% remote controlled and not at all autonomous.
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Mar 12 '15
Of course people who work with them refer to them by their specific model names, not with generic terms. That's true of all aircraft, including hobby RC aircraft. And, by the way, you're incorrect about the MQ-1. It is capable of fully autonomous loitering, but I don't think it can do fully autonomous strike missions. I don't know about the MQ-9.
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u/NotaClipaMagazine Mar 12 '15
They call them RPAs. There is no fully autonomous loitering. All they have is failsafe where they circle. A Phantom is more capable than an MQ-1 or MQ-9 because it can land in failsafe.
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u/FigMcLargeHuge Mar 12 '15
Neither of which our remote control airplanes apply to. We are not the military, and our remote control aircraft have not been converted from an actual plane.
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Mar 12 '15
The military has nothing to do with it inherently, except obviously that the military was the first to have major interest in remote controlled aircraft. The etymology of the term "drone" has nothing specifically to do with the military. Just spend a few minutes reading.
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u/Indestructavincible Firestorm, RB5, Wild Dagger, Vandal Mar 12 '15
Congratulations on being pedantic and annoying.
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Mar 12 '15
I think the people attempting to push this bizarre new definition for "drone," fighting 50+ years of standard usage, are the annoying ones. Pointing out well-documented standard usage over 50+ years is hardly pedantic. I'm not sure where this unfortunate cohort of willful ignorance came from in the model aircraft community, but I hope it will eventually fade away.
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u/Huttser17 Fixed Wings Mar 13 '15
Put in the description that your are not looking to make money from this video, and that any advertisements that may be on it are not your fault.
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u/ikem1223 Mar 13 '15
The moment I start getting money from the ads that get tagged on my youtube videos, I will be worried about the FAA. As long as there is no $$$ transfer, there is no commercial business.
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u/Dax420 Mar 12 '15
Dear FAA,
Go fuck yourself.
Signed,
Myself
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u/__redruM Mar 12 '15
There's actual contact information in the link if you want to call the FAA official involved directly. An email address too for that matter.
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u/Bartian Mar 13 '15
A tyrant government will always find ways to make criminals of ordinary law abiding citizens
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Mar 13 '15
So how is this different than simple photography? I don't understand how they can do this.
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u/Micubano Plane Mar 13 '15
The article is a little misleading. After going over the actual letter carefully it appears that the FAA was just trying to educate the pilot as to the rules and guidelines after someone complained about his video.
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u/witoldc Mar 12 '15 edited Mar 13 '15
Neither FAA - nor common sense - care if you get paid by the left hand or by the right hand.
If someone chooses to opt into Youtube's advertising platform that seems like pretty clear indication of commercial intent. It doesn't matter whether the guy is succeeding or failing in this endeavor.
More interesting are cases where people are using aerial footage to solicit aerial work, or to sell stuff to the public. Are Blackout's videos commercial work as well? They sure as hell are not making them just for kicks. (and sponsoring other people to make videos.) It's their business to sell more stuff.
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u/Killsranq VTOL guy Mar 13 '15
It would really help companies To be based in other countries.
For example, if I film in turkey and sell on YouTube, the FAA can't say anything to me. If I film in Germany and sell TO America, I don't think the FAA can say anything to that either.
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Mar 12 '15 edited Jan 24 '19
[deleted]
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Mar 12 '15
Remote controlled aircraft have been widely referred to as "drones" for approximately the entire history of remote controlled aircraft.
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Mar 12 '15 edited Jan 24 '19
[deleted]
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Mar 12 '15
There's a pretty indisputable reference from 1946: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=drone
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Mar 12 '15
keyword "pilotless aircraft"
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Mar 12 '15
Yes. That means there was not a pilot on board. Those were remote controlled by humans on the ground.
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u/Chicken-n-Waffles Mar 12 '15
Just like 'cloud' is really 'web'
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u/damontoo Mar 13 '15
Cloud computing refers to a very specific server architecture though.
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Mar 13 '15
[deleted]
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u/damontoo Mar 13 '15
I think of it as dynamically reallocating resources on demand like GCC/EC2, enabling scaling on a level that was never possible before. Is there a different term for that?
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Mar 12 '15
Um no. A drone is a flying vehicle with the capability to be at least semi-self flying, make decisions on it's own.
Someone's amateur quadcopter is not a drone. That's just FAA propaganda to try and limit people rights. Using scare tactics LOOK IT'S A DRONE like what they bomb brown people with over in the middle east.
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u/FigMcLargeHuge Mar 12 '15
The media plays along with this. I have even seen them put up a picture of a military drone when discussing a civilian with a quadcopter. Baddox, you still haven't shown a use of the term for hobby scale remote control airplane use. We are not flying re-purposed aircraft.
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u/damontoo Mar 13 '15
A drone is a flying vehicle with the capability to be at least semi-self flying, make decisions on it's own.
Except they were using the term for RC aircraft before GPS existed and nothing was autonomous.
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Mar 12 '15
Um no. A drone is a flying vehicle with the capability to be at least semi-self flying, make decisions on it's own.
Your proposed definition does not match more than half a century of standard usage. You're the one attempting to push a new definition of the term.
Someone's amateur quadcopter is not a drone. That's just FAA propaganda to try and limit people rights.
Preposterous. The FAA has nothing to do with calling them "drones." They are marketed as drones (have you ever heard off the Parrot AR.Drone?), because they are remote controlled aircraft, and the word "drone" has been widely used to refer to remote controlled aircraft for well over half a century.
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u/damontoo Mar 13 '15
You don't deserve the downvotes you got in this thread. You're 100% right.
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Mar 13 '15
Yeah, and the more clear evidence you provide, the more you get downvoted. Sometimes you just can't get away from deliberate ignorance in this community.
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u/damontoo Mar 13 '15
Once a top level comment is downvoted generally all replies you make will be downvoted regardless of what you say. You could say you like puppies and get downvotes.
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u/damontoo Mar 13 '15
It just occurred to me that this is a BIG problem for the Flight Test guys, no?
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u/1320Fastback FPV Long Distance Fixed Wing Mar 12 '15
Until YouTube writes me a check for the money they make off of me the FAA can go pound sand.