Are you liable if someone else uses your media for commercial purposes without your permission?

[Droning on and on...]

No, and the FAA has a thousand other things to take care of before they'd care about this scenario.

Completely agree, but irrelevant. This is a gedanken.

 

[anotherlab]

Hi Dale. I described the best and least expensive way to manage copyright infringement in my post above yours. One does not need to hire an attorney, in fact, it definitely isn’t worth the money they would spend to have an attorney work for them, even if it’s for a consultation. In addition to this, taking the person or company to civil court would be a huge waste of money as well, it is highly unlikely an artist will get reimbursed for all the trouble unless they can prove what their work is worth. It really is best too come to an agreement directly with the copyright infringer once a valuation has been determined and agreed upon by both parties. But if this doesn’t work, and the infringement continues, you would still be on your own in civil court unless you register the copyright for the work with the US government copyright office.

Unless substantial amounts of money are involved, hiring an IP lawyer would be a waste of money you'll never recover.

If someone uses your video without engaging in good-faith licensing negotiations, file a DMCA notice.

 

[Nexus Dragoon]

This isn't part of equation; ever. Channel owners have no control over what YouTube does on the platform and it's irrelevant what a subscriber sees on their personal computer in terms of ads or sponsorship material while they are video your videos. Mentioning it here in the context of an FAA investigation simply has no place here; I'm not even sure anyone at the FAA knows what AdSense means. Google is not sending any financial information to the FAA therefore they have no visibility to monetization of video nor do they care.


No such thing. I appreciate your overall focus on addressing the topic and you hit on a few good points but there are no special protections afforded to drone footage or at least I've never seen any indication that raise such red flags. In fact, I have seen drone footage playing at doctors and dentists offices and various other places......in the US we have something called Fair Use that has effectively eroded the copyright landscape to the point where it's not even worth it if the violations aren't egregious.

I appreciate the perspective! You're definitely right that the FAA isn't getting automated reports from Google, and for 99% of hobbyists, this will never be an issue. However, there are a few technical gaps in that logic that could get a pilot in hot water if they aren't careful:

The 'Intent' Factor: While the FAA doesn't see your bank account, they absolutely use monetization (ads, sponsors, 'buy me a coffee' links) as evidence of commercial intent. In their view, if the flight 'furthers a business' (including a YouTube business), it’s Part 107 territory. There are several published warning letters where the FAA specifically cited a pilot’s monetized channel as evidence of non-recreational activity.

Fair Use vs. Commercial Use: Fair Use is a legal defense for things like commentary or news, but it almost never covers using someone else's footage for direct commercial gain (like an ad for a business). Using a hobbyist's drone shot to sell a product without permission isn't 'Fair Use'—it’s just a liability waiting to happen.

The Paper Trail: The reason the copyright dispute matters is that if a pilot ever is investigated, having a Cease and Desist on file proves the commercial use was unauthorized. It protects the pilot by showing they didn't fly with the intent to sell the footage; rather, the footage was stolen after the fact.

At the end of the day, you're right that the FAA isn't 'high-tech' in their monitoring, but they are very 'high-consequence' if a pilot ends up on their radar. Better to have the legal ducks in a row just in case.

 

[mavic3usa]

The 'Intent' Factor: While the FAA doesn't see your bank account, they absolutely use monetization (ads, sponsors, 'buy me a coffee' links) as evidence of commercial intent. In their view, if the flight 'furthers a business' (including a YouTube business), it’s Part 107 territory. There are several published warning letters where the FAA specifically cited a pilot’s monetized channel as evidence of non-recreational activity.

Certainly that is true. If the FAA were investigating, they would be remiss if they overlooked the video posted on YouTube and did not analysis it thoroughly to assist with making a legal determination. For example, if they watch a video and the drone is flying different angles capturing a wedding procession everything from the ceremony to the attendees to the entire setup along with captions describing the events and a watermark with the company name.....anyone can say that appears to point to an operation that would fall under part 107. However, that's a bit different than suggesting because the video is posted to a channel that contains YouTube advertising and you're guessing the owner of the channel (whoever that is) is getting paid....none of that is relevant. For example, a person has a cooking channel, he's a chef, and he shows recipes in the kitchen for 20 minutes, he's sponsored by the local grocery and the name of his paid channel is Big Chef. But his opening 30-sec video shows beautiful scenery depicts obviously a drone flying around his local town and the sunset. It's drone footage posted to a monetize YouTube channel. Does it need to be investigated? Absolutely not. However, we all know that if he's the pilot and he woke up one morning and said "I'm going to fly my drone and create a nice opening to my cooking channel and use it going forward" then he would absolutely require a part 107 to do that. To the FAA, the violation would be flying with intent and not having a part 107 and not "posting drone commercial drone video to a monetized YouTube channel." We have to get away from that else we run certain risks that I won't get into in this post.

Fair Use vs. Commercial Use: Fair Use is a legal defense for things like commentary or news, but it almost never covers using someone else's footage for direct commercial gain (like an ad for a business). Using a hobbyist's drone shot to sell a product without permission isn't 'Fair Use'—it’s just a liability waiting to happen.

You are correct and this is the only relevant comment I made about Fair Use, in my opinion:

"....Fair Use that has effectively eroded the copyright landscape to the point where it's not even worth it if the violations aren't egregious."

meaning, it's going to be super hard and very expensive to even bother with any of that. There are literally hundreds of drone channels based in China, Brazil, Pakistan, Romania, the Philippines, all over the world ripping off and repurposing content....under the assumption you posted it and "gave it away" on a public platform to share it to the world and it's not a unique work of art with a registered copyright, and we have a leg to fight you on if needed. If you see someone advertising their bakery and they can make the bread really fast and they cut away to a clip showing race cars at the speedway from an overhead drone shot and that's *your* 10-second footage.....I'm not even sure how you are supposed to deal with that legally.

 

[Nexus Dragoon]

Certainly that is true. If the FAA were investigating, they would be remiss if they overlooked the video posted on YouTube and did not analysis it thoroughly to assist with making a legal determination. For example, if they watch a video and the drone is flying different angles capturing a wedding procession everything from the ceremony to the attendees to the entire setup along with captions describing the events and a watermark with the company name.....anyone can say that appears to point to an operation that would fall under part 107. However, that's a bit different than suggesting because the video is posted to a channel that contains YouTube advertising and you're guessing the owner of the channel (whoever that is) is getting paid....none of that is relevant. For example, a person has a cooking channel, he's a chef, and he shows recipes in the kitchen for 20 minutes, he's sponsored by the local grocery and the name of his paid channel is Big Chef. But his opening 30-sec video shows beautiful scenery depicts obviously a drone flying around his local town and the sunset. It's drone footage posted to a monetize YouTube channel. Does it need to be investigated? Absolutely not. However, we all know that if he's the pilot and he woke up one morning and said "I'm going to fly my drone and create a nice opening to my cooking channel and use it going forward" then he would absolutely require a part 107 to do that. To the FAA, the violation would be flying with intent and not having a part 107 and not "posting drone commercial drone video to a monetized YouTube channel." We have to get away from that else we run certain risks that I won't get into in this post.



You are correct and this is the only relevant comment I made about Fair Use, in my opinion:

"....Fair Use that has effectively eroded the copyright landscape to the point where it's not even worth it if the violations aren't egregious."

meaning, it's going to be super hard and very expensive to even bother with any of that. There are literally hundreds of drone channels based in China, Brazil, Pakistan, Romania, the Philippines, all over the world ripping off and repurposing content....under the assumption you posted it and "gave it away" on a public platform to share it to the world and it's not a unique work of art with a registered copyright, and we have a leg to fight you on if needed. If you see someone advertising their bakery and they can make the bread really fast and they cut away to a clip showing race cars at the speedway from an overhead drone shot and that's *your* 10-second footage.....I'm not even sure how you are supposed to deal with that legally.

i am off to bed its like 6am here and i got to be up later to get a delivery from dji new toys lol. i saw some videos the other week that might interest you.

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[mavic3usa]

i am off to bed its like 6am here and i got to be up later to get a delivery from dji new toys lol. i saw some videos the other week that might interest you.

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yep, I posted those videos here the other day. LOL

have a good day!