Jeven is just as active with his DSLR camera as with his drones. For years, there has been a battle whether also *any* photography in the US NPS is commercial in nature. It has gone back and forth such that the rules because unclear and it took a legal battle to determine the outcome. there are literally hundreds of videos on this topic. And they plead the same case the drone pilots plead. Sounds familiar?
This is how I remember it and since this is my opinion going forward (and it's completely biased) then prepare for the worse: The government declared that anyone who used a camera for pretty much anything because snapping a single photo of something interesting *must* be commercial photographer and therefore follow the rules, pay the fees, follow the rules, make appointments, follow the rules, ask for permission, follow the rules. We all know if you work on behalf of a media company or you have expensive equipment and a crew and setup including tripods and lights, etc and you seek to takeover a part of the park temporarily....you need a permit. But along came Youtube. And making money while visiting *exotic* places. And the government wanted to control that, no surprise. If you took a picture of a butterfly inside the Park and it posted on social media and you made $1, it was illegal without a commercial license and yeah, they came after you. Completely the opposite of the commercial model for drones where we have the rules but basically zero enforcement unless it was egregious. The only difference is they just outright banned the flying camera (drone) from the Park.
Photographers fought and they fought hard and they united and they worked together and they used the legal system, the courts, and the Constitution and they won but they understand, even today their fight is not over. Even today, there will be Parks that stop them or trying to limit them or even eject them because YouTubers are targets and just because there's a law doesn't mean *you* get to exercise it. Battles are won/lost but freedom is never free forever. We should take a page from the professional photographer community and begin the fight today. We should have had some type of text or concession in that bill.
One day drones will be legal in the NPS system to some extent since I think we are all at a place where we would accept a rigid and limited drone permitting process even if it were somewhat expensive an/or timely. That's because the drone community is waiting for a handout from the government which takes a long long time (if ever) but I bet one day in my lifetime, I will be flying drones in the traditional NPS (and I don't mean standing outside the Park boundaries and flying over my own land that I pay for). So the headline in this post is just a few years (or a decade or two) early.
