Malstrond
Calling it trolling instead of a nation state trying to influence you belittles the phenomenon.
So if you exceed visual line of sight it becomes a normal aircraft, just like every other plane. And they all have to be registered.
Historical argument: Model R/C aircraft have been around for longer (including a video downlink and limited autonomous flight like return-to-home) than the term drone has been applied to them, even if it existed before as you said. Since the capabilities of these R/C aircraft didn't change, it is logical that their name doesn't change either.
Usefulness of the definition: Aircraft which are the size of a van and shooting rockets at brown people in the middle east are also called drone. Since capabilities, dangers and use case differ so radically from a 600g aicraft crashing into trees because it's fun, it is logical that they have a different name.
Political argument: Because drone is associated with the aforementioned military aircraft, it makes it easier to call for more regulation of hobbyists by playing on the public's fears.
So maybe not a public road -> airspace below a certain height?
The battle about the meaning of hacker (vs. cracker) was lost in the 80ies, yet some communities continue to use it in the old sense of the word to set themselves apart.
Model aircraft have to be flown within visual line of sight (FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, Section 336), which restricts the height.
Commercial use is already FAA territory and you have to be registered (Section 333 Exemption).
/Edit: Section 336, not 366.
If used recreationally, they're R/C flying models, no matter how much the DJI marketing dept likes the term. So will the the hobby that has been fine for decades be hit too?
Will you have to register a Cheerson CX-Stars that weighs 8g?
What about the congressional Special Rule for Model Aircraft? "Technically it's not the FAA so we can regulate everything!" or what?
They're also not that hard to build yourself and the components are shared with other things (e.g. motors are shared with R/C cars and the first popular flight controller was an Arduino with the sensors from a Wii Motion Plus or Nunchuk) so you can't ban the part sales.
https://pay.reddit.com/r/Multicopter/comments/3dqoyh/multico...
Hah, with both us here, we probably gathered 50% of the ex player base.
It's still alive, with little players though. But there is a community team that keeps it running and tries to untangle the decade old spaghetti code to balance it and fix old bugs.
If you count straight up plagiarism as less influence, certainly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbaland_plagiarism_controver...
If proprietary software is more often then not superior on its merits alone, why does it need a protectionist anti-competitive law (Intellectual property, reverse engineering forbidden by EULAs) to help it compete?
WoW does much more than that: http://www.ownedcore.com/forums/world-of-warcraft/world-of-w...
The strategy for defending Belgium in both world wars and the strategy for defending the average citizen against corporate interests seem to be the same in this case: Do nothing, leave them to the wolves.
How can "we" be sure he won't just cave in again?
1: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/tco-should-include-exit-cos...
"TCO should include exit costs and cost of vendor lock-in" https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/tco-should-include-exit-cos...