California Bill Would Dramatically Limit Commercial Drones 192
An anonymous reader writes: California's Senate Bill 142 would prohibit drones from flying under 350 feet over any property without express permission from the property's owner. The bill passed the California Assembly easily. Tech advocates have been battling privacy advocates to influence the inevitable regulation of private and commercial drones. Industry groups say this restriction will kill drone delivery services before they even begin. The legislation would also drastically diminish the usefulness of camera-centric drones like the ones being rolled out by GoPro. If passed, the bill could influence how other states regulate drones. The article notes that 156 different drone-related bills have been considered in 46 different states this year alone, and the FAA will issue nationwide rules in September.
Good. (Score:5, Interesting)
Drones have no legitimate reason to fly over private property. Too bad for you city dwellers, guess there's a reason to leave for the countryside after all, huh?
The next step is to ban aerial photography by drones entirely.
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Could just simplify it to so observations of any kind of private property with an exception for computer vision and similar that is not stored for any appreciable time and only used for navigation.
If your going to make laws for giggles throw in no government agency may employ drones for any purpose other than search and rescue that do not comply with civilian regulations and no information gained by drones directly or indirectly may be used in criminal or civil cases.
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He believes blackmail will be the most important new industry of the 21st century. AshMad is another way to get the info.
The NSA will lead the way.
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You don't need to be under 350 feet for remote sensing apps. In fact, you get better coverage from higher up. That industry is safe.
-Chris
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If America does, it would only be banned in America, and the rest of the world wouldn't be able to profit from that in America. However, American industry could still participate outside of the states.
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Re:Good. (Score:5, Interesting)
It depends on where you are within the state. In the major population centers it's fairly blue. In the rest of the state it's fairly red.
With the recent voter initiatives that largely did away with gerrymandering and made it so that the two biggest vote getters run in the main election the state government has become far more centrist. In a recent election in my district for the US house of representatives it was between a very left-wing democrat against a centrist moderate democrat. The centrist beat out the long-term left-wing democrat. In other districts there were two republicans running against each other and often the more moderate candidate won. The system tends to favor moderates in both parties over the extreme left or right. The endless bickering and road blocks have largely gone away and the state finally has a budget surplus and rainy day fund due in large part to a spendthrift democrat governor. The republican obstructionism has largely gone away and the two sides are actually working together *gasp*. That's not to say things are perfect, but it's far better than it was when everything was held hostage by the far right. In some way our governor is too much of a spendthrift. Our roads are among the worst in the nation and we need to spend some serious dough to repair them but he's being quite reluctant to raise the gasoline tax or pay for it despite even the very conservative Chamber of Commerce asking for this.
Re: I don't think you meant spendthrift (Score:2)
Cry me a river (Score:5, Insightful)
" Industry groups say this restriction will kill drone delivery services before they even begin. "
Sounds like a good use of state authority to me.
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How about this; keep your fucking toys away from my property, you twisted pervert.
Re:Cry me a river (Score:5, Insightful)
How about this; keep your fucking toys away from my property, you twisted pervert.
And keep them away from mine also. We're not all libertarians here, you know.
Actually, I cannot conceive of any situation in which I'd want drones to fly over my property, whether loitering or whizzing. I explicitly include package delivery services, as there is no way I'd want drones from amazon or others flying at moderate altitudes over my property. If law enforcement drones whizzed overhead, it would depend on the laws passed. We often sunbathe nude, and have every expectation of privacy while doing so, as the places we sunbathe are not visible from any public land or from any of our neighbor's land [*]. If law enforcement drones loitered without a warrant, they'd get shot down (we have enough acres to do this).
[*] One or two military boys fly overhead occasionally in their chase games - typically once per month, but unpredictably. I suspect they're at rather more than 350 feet, and going much faster than a drone.
Mods. The parent is not a troll. (Score:5, Interesting)
.. but a legitimate point of argument in the debate. What is the point of this discussion at all if anti-drone posts gets labelled as a "troll"? Perhaps the grand-parent calling drone enthusiasts "twisted perverts" could be seen as a troll, but the parent does not include any abuse apart from what is seen in the direct quote.
I'm not sure what the difference is between a radio operated car with a camera on (surely a form of trespassing, if on your property?) and a drone flying 20 feet above it with a camera. They both have the same implications; invasion of privacy. The drone also adds risk of destruction to your property.
Drone enthusiasts can take their drones to public parks, nature or fly over their own property.
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I'm not sure what the difference is between a radio operated car with a camera on (surely a form of trespassing, if on your property?) and a drone flying 20 feet above it with a camera. They both have the same implications; invasion of privacy. The drone also adds risk of destruction to your property.
Actually, since we started using LiPos, the car adds significant risk of destruction to your property, too. If they run it into a bush and short the motor for long enough the battery will turn into a fire and the bush will turn into a biblical reenactment, less soundtrack
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If it's not feasible to make delivery drones fly at ~350ft or higher, or stick to public roads, perhaps they are not yet ready to replace delivery trucks. There's no reason we have to rush these things out the door if it means compromoising our privacy and safety.
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Re:Cry me a river (Score:5, Insightful)
that's very Libertarian of you, endorsing even more government regulations. "Cognitive dissonance" in operation?
Uhm...using state authority to enforce private property rights is one of the few things most schools of libertarianism agree is a legitimate use of state power.
Re:Cry me a river (Score:4, Insightful)
that's very Libertarian of you, endorsing even more government regulations. "Cognitive dissonance" in operation?
Isn't a strong defense of private property rights a Libertarian principle? In this case, the proposed law would be enforcing property owners' right not to have uninvited guests buzzing around in their private airspace [wikipedia.org].
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:) my thoughts exactly.
"Darlin' go get daddy's SAM from the garage."
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Besides the ass-reaming the other responders gave you, when did I ever say I was a Libertarian?
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"Tired of partisan politics? Demand a split ticket - Green Party President with a Libertarian Vice-president." Last part of your sentence...and that's not an ass reaming, their just doing a gentle salad-tossing.
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And you missed the fact that the President will be a Green Party member. In 2012 the Green Party candidate was Dr. Jill Stein. I voted for her. I've stated this fact many times on this site, if you care to search my post history.
So, no, I am not a Big-L Libertarian, even though I agree with some of their ideas.
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This is my favorite part about libertarians. They seem to hate governance and rules, but of course they love them. It's just that their small government enforces entirely different sets of rules than every other libertarian. Governance is a drug that libertarians can't quit.
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You don't actually know any libertarians, now do you.
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You don't actually know any libertarians, now do you.
I do. I know more than I want to. Libertarians always favor laws and courts, they just favor ones that only handle the issues they want them to handle, and they imagine that they will always side with them. Libertarians think that they are smarter than everyone else, and want police protection from their slaves, who it is right to oppress because they are less fortunate.
Did I leave anything out of the libertarian platform? I guess I omitted the hand-waving about how this attitude will somehow make the world
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What I never found in any Libertarian platform was an explanation of how were were to get this massively increased court system. Based on the "you can always sue" planks, it would be necessary for lawsuits to be almost trivial to file, for somebody else to be tasked with the research, and the decisions enforced by somebody else.
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What I never found in any Libertarian platform was an explanation of how were were to get this massively increased court system.
I'm sure there's a book about it, which any libertarian will tell you that we are idiots if we haven't read. I fear the answer is that it will be provided by some private interest, who accepts cash, check, and credit card.
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Your rights end where they interfere with mine...at my property line.
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" Industry groups say this restriction will kill drone delivery services before they even begin. "
Sounds like a good use of state authority to me.
Imagine logging on to a grocery store website, choosing the items you want and clicking deliver. Drone is loaded up at the warehouse and flies the goods right to your door.
It's cheaper and more environmentally friendly since you're not driving, you can save time and reduce food waste by replacing single massive shopping trips with a bunch of small immediate need purchases, and you can replace the massive grocery store with its giant parking lot with something more interesting.
Sure there's a lot of potential
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OK. And when there are 5000 drones hovering over every neighborhood, because everyone is buying one or two items at a time, several times every day, tell me how that makes for a nicer picture than people driving to a store. When they start falling out of the sky, how convenient will it be?
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Frequency is important but would you rather 1 car or 1.5 drones?
But I agree the prospect of falling drones (or stuff falling from drones) could be a deal breaker, reliability is a major risk.
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It will be much more than 1.5 drones. According to this, http://www.quora.com/How-much-... [quora.com] , a UPS truck will normally carry around 250 packages on a residential route. How many will that drone carry, or how many drones will it take to carry the equivalent?
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It will be much more than 1.5 drones. According to this, http://www.quora.com/How-much-... [quora.com] , a UPS truck will normally carry around 250 packages on a residential route. How many will that drone carry, or how many drones will it take to carry the equivalent?
A UPS truck isn't delivering 250 packages at once. 1.5 drones is probably the number of physical drones needed to replace a single UPS truck.
There is one huge difference though. Those 1.5 drones have to make 250 trips to deliver those 250 packages so to the final neighbourhood getting
the package, it's approximately the same amount of traffic but to the unfortunate neighbourhood in between the final neighbourhood and the
distribution center those 1.5 drones cross over your property 500 times.
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For my monthly Sam's or Costco run where I'm buying bulk, I'm taking my G20 Van and loading it to the gills. For the weekly Grocery trip, I'm taking my Yamaha Venture Royale with two large saddlebags and a trunk. Becoming dependent on daily drone delivery for the day to day necessities will actually increase my costs because it will be similar to when I was doing daily grocery shopping on my way home from work (thus, fuel costs were not a factor since the store was on my direct route home) just for that d
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Imagine logging on to a grocery store website, choosing the items you want and clicking deliver. Drone is loaded up at the warehouse and flies the goods right to your door.
That would be far too expensive to do by drone. They should do it with a delivery truck instead and load up all of the orders in an area together.
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nothing is stopping drones from say, ascending to 350 feet for the majority of their transit, and descending to 20 feet for the final final leg.
as far as i can tell, public roads are fair game.
i'd also envision a purchasing interface that lets them know where you'd like your package delivered on your property, and if you're fine with the delivery drone entering your airspace. I'd also envision you dropping a highly visible visual reference for where exactly you want your package set down.
alternatively, if
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It actually doesn't kill all drone delivery systems. A potential recipient can always grant permission for certain drones to come down and land.
Personally, I'm not counting it as delivered unless it's on my front porch, and until the technology improves tremendously I don't want any drone flying low enough over my property to do that. If I lived in California, I'd be happy to see the delivery drones flying at 350' over my property on the way to somewhere else
kill drone delivery services? (Score:4, Insightful)
How? If I gave permission with the order, they can land on my property. They just have to hover down from 350 feet.
Express permission? (Score:2)
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What about over the public roads and streets?
This is an article about drones not being permitted over private property, and you're worried about drones over public property? You are ass-backwards. Go away. We have enough people who can't read here already.
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The State of CA has zero legal authority to regulate anything once it leaves the ground...that is fully reserved to the Feds under 49 U.S. Code 40103 - Sovereignty and use of airspace:
(a) Sovereignty and Public Right of Transit.—
(1) The United States Government has EXCLUSIVE sovereignty of airspace of the United States.
CA can pass anything they want but it means absolutely nothing from a legal perspective. Airspace starts at the ground.
Good luck explaining that to the sherrif's deputy that hand-cuffs you for violating state law. You may win if your appeal reaches the Supreme Court.
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What part of this is unconstitutional?
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Even tho bullets/stones "fly thru the air" they are not regulated under the authority of the FAA. Only AIRCRAFT are regulated (per below) and bullets/stones do not qualify as aircraft..but all drones do (hobby or commercial). The Feds are responsible (soley) for ensuring that AIRCRAFT do not cause harm to property or individuals on the ground. If CA wants to regulate using a "remote control" device by an ground-based operator perhaps they could get away with that...but they could not regulate fully automa
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So, that bullet fired at you has departed contact with the ground. Discuss.
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FedEx and UPS manage it with no problem... (Score:2)
FedEx and UPS manage to deliver packages to me by truck without driving over any property without permission. Why is it supposedly so hard for drones to do so without flying over property without permission? Just follow the same route UPS or FedEx would use.
In fact, it should be easier for the drones since they will be allowed over property without permission if they are 350 feet up. FedEx and UPS trucks do not have that option.
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One difference is that when something falls out of a UPS or Fedex truck, it's not falling from 350 feet onto someone.
Exceeds state authority (Score:5, Informative)
All airspace within the U.S. is under control of the FAA. Although the FAA allows some unlicensed use of low altitude airspace (for model aircraft, rockets, and the like), anything that's not sitting on the ground is under their regulatory authority. The supremacy clause of the constitution spells out that, in the event of a conflict between federal and state law, federal law takes priority.
Re:Exceeds state authority (Score:4, Informative)
Very true. No idea why you're modded down to 0... you're correct.
Only the FAA has jurisdiction. The California State government can pass as
many measure as it takes for them to be blue in the face, but they have no
force of law and a simple hearing removed to US District Court would
resolve that in a heartbeat.
However, politicians posturing and appearing to "do something" is what it
really is... and that's nothing new.
Ehud Gavron
FAA commercial helicopter pilot
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Very true. No idea why you're modded down to 0... you're correct.
Not sure if you read replies, but just FYI - Anonymous Cowards' posts start at a score of 0, and logged in users with reasonable karma start at 1.
Subscribers / users on your "friends list" may have a bonus point attributed to their posts, hence start at 2, although I'm not entirely sure how this part works.
Users also have an option in their settings to assign an extra point to posts that have been moderated by category, i.e. Informative or Funny if said user is interested in pushing such posts to higher pro
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The bill seems only require commercial drone operators to obey it. Perhaps they are hoping that they can make not operating a drone under 350ft a condition of doing business in the state, rather than an issue of controlling the airspace.
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Although the FAA allows some unlicensed use of low altitude airspace (for model aircraft, rockets, and the like), anything that's not sitting on the ground is under their regulatory authority.
Does that mean a bullet is under FAA authority the moment it leaves the gun? After all, it isn't sitting on the ground.
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Right up till the moment it hits something....
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There are many claims of authority by regulatory bodies. Some of them are constitutional.
The FAA must rely on the grant of power in Art 1 Sec 8 of the constitution to regulate commerce among the several states.
Airliners bound for other states fly over my house every day. I concede the FAA's authority over those airplanes and their flights.
OTOH, a little drone flying barely above the treetops has a far slimmer case to be part of interstate commerce.
Federal jurisdiction over use of the air is not unlimited, a
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Maybe this is exactly why California is proposing the bill - to wake the FAA up and get them to do something
I believe Arizona and a few other states tried passing immigration laws that mirrored the federal ones since they felt the federal ones were not being enforced and wanted to "wake up" the feds to that problem. It didn't work out for them and probably won't for California, either.
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That assumes the FAA can just pass a magic wand and the bill is passed.
There are a LOT of stakeholders in this - you have airlines (who have to deal with drones near commercial airports), the military, and general aviation. All of whom have differing and conflicting views. There has to be adequate consultation with those stakeholders, and then you have to talk to the people who operate drones.
Then com
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You are quoting me quoting the poster above me.
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I missed the section of the Constitution that mentions federal control of airspace, can you help me find it?
Since California's law addresses commercial drones, then the federal government has jurisdiction under the Interstate Commerce clause, using the same sort of argument that resulted in a farmer being successfully prosecuted for growing too much animal feed for his own use (by not buying feed, he was affecting interstate commerce). As long as the commercial drone activity can be, by whatever stretch of the imagination, linked to an interstate transaction, the federal government can 'justify' exercising author
Pre-emption (Score:3)
The FAA should simply preempt California's unauthorized attempt, as they have the exclusive control of the air space of the United States from ground level to space; and are the only agency to establish the policies for its use.
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And only the FDA can make marijuana sales legal. Except in the states where they ignore federal law, because the federal agencies are being stupid.
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There is a difference and that is the law states that the FAA is the exclusive authority. The same is not true for medical issues, a lot of federal authority has been delegated to the states.
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Except in states where marijuana sales are legal, that only means that state law enforcement couldn't arrest you for drug possession. You still could be charged with a federal crime. Lately they just look the other way as they realize it's not generally worth the effort.
If you were charged under state law for violating private air space, it could be transferred to federal court as the FAA has jurisdiction, where the charge would be ultimately tossed out due to lack of jurisdiction on the part of the state.
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Is the person controlling the drone on the ground not subject to Californian regulation? Granted, if he's is situated out-of-state, he's not, but as long as he's is on the ground in California, it seems to me that his actions could be regulated by California state law. I'm a furriner though, so I may not understand the intricacies of the US.
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Relation to Buffalo Bill? (Score:3, Funny)
Who is this California Bill, and why does he want to limit commercial drones?
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Who is this California Bill, and why does he want to limit commercial drones?
A relative of Brooklyn Decker, Cuba Gooding, Orlando Bloom, Paris Hilton and Dakota Fanning?
How times change (Score:2)
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Back in the 90's, you didn't have things with cameras flying over your backyard. You didn't have people monitoring your (e)mail, photographing your license plate, or tracking your cell phone.
I won't give up my privacy w/o a fight.
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Back in the 90's, you didn't have things with cameras flying over your backyard
But you did have nosy neighbors, kids who climb trees, bird photographers with 1000' lenses ... the usual. Are you having a problem, now, with people flying multirotors low enough around your back yard to actually (really) invade your privacy? How often is this happening to you? There are literally millions of them in use.
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My Opinion: I think that the big change in mindset stems from the notion that even with only a fraction of tech that was dreamed about in the 90's becoming a commercial reality in the years "Beyond 2000"(tm) there's been more than enough evidence that once a piece of tech comes to market there's always a significant cost to our way of life that moves us further and further away from Gene Roddenberry's technologically enlightened utopia and more into an Orwellian dystopia.
Case in point: The Smartphone. In
Search and Rescue (Score:2)
There are some unexpected impacts of this law (I haven't read the full law).
A non-commercial area of drone use that is currently not possible, and will not be possible under this law (assuming there are no exemptions) is around search and rescue. Drones fitted with cameras help with visual scanning, with heat sensing equipment they can be sued for far more effective search and rescue.
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Correction (Score:2)
"Tech advocates have been battling privacy advocates to influence the inevitable regulation of private and commercial drones."
Let's get this right. It's not "tech advocates", it's big business.
Unintended consequences (Score:3)
First, they're not saying you can't fly over someone's property without permission. They're just saying you have to do it above 350 feet. Of course the FAA says you have to keep it under 400 feet, so this absurd law forces the drone operator to work closer to the general aviation deck, and to have to fuss about keeping their equipment in an unnecessarily narrow 50' band. Operating over hilly terrain? Double plus difficult for no reason.
Secondly, all this does is make what would annoy a neighbor even worse. In the vast majority of these cases, we're talking about a real estate agent (or her photographer) usually popping some small, comparatively very safe, quiet machine like a DJI Phantom 3 up into the air for a quick few minutes while it does a quick lap around a house for some exteriors that show the lay of the land, to add to a listing. In a more packed-in suburban setting, yes - for a useful perspective, the picture of the house they're listing is going to be taken from a short distance over the property line, so it's not a straight look-down a la Google.
But no. This brilliant piece of legislation means that now the photographer is going to have to use a heavier-lifting machine (larger hex or octo) that can carry a much heavier gimbal tweaked to carry a larger camera with a better sensor and a longer focal length lens. This rig will be heavier, and so the machine carrying it will be much more powerful (and, in the event of an accident, more dangerous), much louder, and much more annoying to use and to see in use. But someone selling a two million dollar house isn't going to blink at using (or hiring someone to use) such a device in order to continue to benefit from the now fully expected aerials of an expensive piece of real estate. So instead of having a humming little 4-pound plastic toy like a Phantom buzz around the house shooting perfectly good material, we'll have a 20-pound carbon fiber beastie with large CF props growling around at 350'
California: for a place with so many smart people, it sure is dumb.
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Or you know, they could get permission from the neighbor! ... Usually permission for stuff like this is trivial to get.
Speaking from years of experience, I can assure you that it is NOT easy to get. When a realtor makes arrangements for a photographer or a video crew to come and document a property, coordinating with two, three, or four neighbors on logistics, timing, and permission is usually impossible. We try to educate neighbors of clients along these lines: "We'll have a small 4-pound plastic quadcopter, about the size of a large pizza, moving just over your property line, right above tree top level, looking back at t
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Most people are intrigued by the technology, some become very enthusiastic
But perhaps one in twenty people shut down their brains the moment they hear "camera"
Using the inverse math, you've effectively stated that 95% of people give permission. The other 5% value their privacy, and have concerns about new technology. That sounds like a pretty reasonably success ratio to me.
Why do you say it is so hard to get permission
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The California law doesn't prevent the rel estate agent from going up to the neighbor's house and knocking on the door and explaining that they want to take pictures of their listing and they may accidentally stray over the neighbor's property and get permission to do so.
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Uhh, how's that? The legislation specifically says "without the owners approval". Realtors will have the approval.
Wow, you really don't get it, do you? The issue isn't the house that's being photographed. It's that for a useful perspective, you almost always need to stray off of the property that's being photographed, and over some adjoining property. The realtor doesn't always have the luxury of arranging written permission from someone who's away at work or otherwise unavailable just so their 4-pound quadcopter can stray over the neighbor's trees to look back at a for-sale house for 15 seconds.
It's clear that you
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But as I mentioned in another reply in this thread
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Look, the realtor stands to make tens of thousands of dollars off the sale of a million dollar house. I don't have a lot of sympathy that they may need to spend an extra thirty minutes driving back to the property to talk to the neighbors because they weren't there on the first knock. Hell, give the house owner a week to secure permission, and leave some boilerplate forms wi
What? (Score:2)
You make it sound like this is some unexpected side effect of the bill, rather than one of the primary reasons for passing the bill.
"would prohibit drones from flying under 350 feet over any property without express permission from the property's owner." [...] "Industry groups say this restriction will kill drone delivery services before they even begin."
If i order a delive
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Oh fuck off with wrapping yourself in the flag to justify your weird peeping tom fetishism.
A better solution, admittedly, would be to permit the wsnton destruction of these toya.
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Pretty sure the gunshot will alert everyone to duck and cover.
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Yawn, did you know you can buy cheap cameras with 100x zoom? This law just pretends to give privacy to property owners, because you can take detailed photos from a drone even a mile high, let alone 350 feet.
It's a worthless law unless they write the law such that drones should fly a lot lower than 350 feet (maybe 50 feet) AND they should not fly over private property. Anything else and it's an invasion of privacy.
I couldn't care less about the cameras. 350ft seems like a reasonable level so that the noise/visual is minimal. The reason airplanes flying over
your house is not a big deal is that unless you live near the airport they are far enough away that you barely see them. My grandma tells stories
of dishes falling off the shelves when early jets would cross the sound barrier. They passed a law that outlawed breaking the sound barrier across
land. This has completely halted faster than sound travel and made it b