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A comment on FAA says monetized videos shot from drones are subject to commercial regulations.

Re:FAA says monetized videos shot from drones are subject to... by hughes on Thursday March 12, 2015 @03:36PM (#9193213)
Is the FAA's problem here that the drone was involved in a monetized video, or that it was carrying the camera that recorded the monetized video?

I wonder if this would apply equally to other drone-related video production techniques:

- A video of a drone, recorded from the ground

- A prop is carried by a drone but the drone never appears in the frame

- The audio is recorded by a drone, but not video

- A camera is dropped from a drone but doesn't begin recording until after release

- The drone's engines are powered off during recording

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Re:FAA says monetized videos shot from drones are subject to... by lutorm on Thursday March 12, 2015 @04:51PM (#9193809)
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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Re:FAA says monetized videos shot from drones are subject to... by bholzer on Thursday March 12, 2015 @04:57PM (#9193857)
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?
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Re:FAA says monetized videos shot from drones are subject to... by lutorm on Thursday March 12, 2015 @05:34PM (#9194088)
Interesting question, I don't know whether skydiving is regulated by the FAA. You don't need a certificate at all to do that.
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Re:FAA says monetized videos shot from drones are subject to... by lutorm on Thursday March 12, 2015 @08:19PM (#9194940)
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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