SpaceX can't broadcast Earth images because of a murky license

Re:SpaceX can't broadcast Earth images because of a murky li... by notahacker on Friday April 06, 2018 @07:19AM (#16772367)

There are privacy implications for air or space based surveillance of the Earth (rather more so for high resolution photography of specific areas of land than video in which the earth is merely a backdrop, but drawing that distinction isn't necessarily trivial). The solution the United States has adopted is to regulate the extent to which commercial entities are entitled to distribute such imagery and video; licensing who is entitled to distribute such images forms part of that regime.

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Re:SpaceX can't broadcast Earth images because of a murky li... by Dylan16807 on Friday April 06, 2018 @07:42AM (#16772457)

> drawing that distinction isn't necessarily trivial

Meters per pixel. If it's >20, just give it blanket permission.

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Re:SpaceX can't broadcast Earth images because of a murky li... by notahacker on Friday April 06, 2018 @08:00AM (#16772525)

That's probably the most practical option, but even that distinction isn't necessarily straightforward in a launch video (and even the sort of 20m multispectral imagery that's freely made available to the entire world by multiple providers including NASA becomes more of a possible privacy/security issue if remote sensing operators were to permanently point their cameras at the same location). The regulation was likely drafted with a view to the future in an era where all satellite based EO had low spatial resolutions and processing techniques were in their infancy anyway.

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Re:SpaceX can't broadcast Earth images because of a murky li... by Dylan16807 on Friday April 06, 2018 @08:16AM (#16772594)

> even that distinction isn't necessarily straightforward in a launch video

From what I understand the trouble point is when they hit orbit, and by then they're plenty far away to meet the cutoff.

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