Already backed down…
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First, I think its important to reiterate that this only applies to designated wilderness areas inside USFS and BLM - not national parks or the majority of land administered by the USFS or BLM. Your Yosemite pictures are fine.
Wilderness areas bar any commercial activity - as well as no road building, no developed camping areas, no motorized vehicles. The USFS has decided to try and formalize this policy as it applies to photography and film making.
I think they did it in a hamhanded way, but they are trying to follow the letter of the law. Does this mean that a natute photographer who sells their may need to get a permit? Maybe. To be honest, I would prefer that to the the slow degradation of the commercial use ban.
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Cory, Cory, Cory. sigh How art thou wrong? Let me count the ways!
- Not new. This rule has been in effect since before 2010. What’s being commented on is whether or not to let it expire, or to renew it.
- Not stupid. This is for huge film crews, who famously are incredibly destructive to wilderness areas. Go visit “Disney Rock” in Joshua Tree National Park–ancient petroglyphs were painted over and added to by scene techs for a rather saccarine movie about a “lonesome coyote”.
- Not a ban; It’s a permit fee, not a ban.
- Not even for “professional” photography–I regularly sell my photographs of BLM and Forest Service lands.
- Will not undermine the visibility of national parks at all, because the Forest Service has no jurisdiction over national parks at all–two separate entities, National Park Service and Forest Service.
- Will not undermine the visibility of Forest Service lands, either–because this permitting fee does not apply to small-scale photography.
- Not a two year old rule: This has been in place since 2010. I ran into it when researching permit requirements at Ancient Bristlecone Pines Forest, and was told by the Regional Director John Louth that it didn’t apply to me.
- The actual rule doesn’t even mention “members of the press”. No, really.
- In all likelihood, most folks won’t have to pay any fee at all, other than their entrance fee.
- Once again, 193 million acres of national parks are not affected by this rule: See #5 above.
- Journalists aren’t “required” to pay; They are required to obtain a permit; and very often the fee is waived.
- The fee is meant to offset the cost of ensuring the following criteria are met:
“A special use permit may be issued(when required by sections 45.1a
and45.2a) to authorize the use of National Forest System lands for still
photography or commercial filming when the proposed activity:
- Meets the screening criteria in 36CFR 251.54(e);
- Would not cause unacceptable resource damage;
- Would not unreasonably disrupt the public’s use and enjoyment of the site where the activity would occur;
- Would not pose a public health and safety risk; and
- Meets the following additional criteria, if the proposed activity,
other than noncommercial still photography (36 CFR 251.51), would be in
a congressionally designated wilderness area:
a. Has a primary objective of dissemination of information about
the use and enjoyment of wilderness or its ecological, geological, or
other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value
(16 U.S.C. 1131(a) and(b));
b. Would preserve the wilderness character of the area proposed for
use, for example, would leave it untrammeled, natural, and undeveloped
and would preserve opportunities for solitude or a primitive and
unconfined type of recreation (16 U.S.C. 1131(a));
c. Is wilderness-dependent, for example, a location within a
wilderness area is identified for the proposed activity and there are no
suitable locations outside of a wilderness area(16 U.S.C. 1133(d)(6));
d. Would not involve use of a motor vehicle, motorboat, or motorized
equipment, including landing of aircraft, unless authorized by the
enabling legislation for the wilderness area (36 CFR 261.18(a) and ©);
e. Would not involve the use of mechanical transport, such as a
hang glider or bicycle, unless authorized by the enabling legislation for
the wilderness area (36 CFR 261.18(b));
f. Would not violate any applicable order (36 CFR 261.57); and
g. Would not advertise any product or service (16 U.S.C. 1133©).”
It takes resources to accomplish the above. I think charging Disney Film Studios $1500 is a steal, don’t you?
Now for the one thing I utterly agree with in this article: The wording is vague, and it has already been demonstrated that it’s open to wild conjecture. It needs to be specific, and professional photographers and independent film makers really should comment.
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From your linked article:
What’s changing is not what kind of photography or filming requires a permit, but the guidelines by which the agency will even approve or deny a permit.
They probably denied some permits and got challenged as to why they were denied and thus created a guideline.
Now, it is true that the guidelines used for approving or rejecting your permit are going to get pretty strict. Your commercial filming (because – media or not – that’s what it is) won’t be able to cause resource damage, disrupt the public’s ability to use the area, be a risk to public health, or involve pornography. And if it’s inside a designated Wilderness area, it must be about the wilderness. It must be necessary that the filming take place on wilderness land (as opposed to other suitable locations that are not federally designated wilderness). And it must not require motorized or mechanical travel, which is already prohibited in the Wilderness.
All fine by me. If they can’t respect a Wilderness Area, then they don’t have any right to be there.
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Yep. Like I said, not as horrible as they’ve been made out by the press. I still don’t think it makes sense to split film and video into two separate rule sets.
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I’m also curious what happens with images that aren’t shot with the intention of becoming commercial. Let’s say you capture a stunning Sasquatch photo on your family vacation and have an opportunnity to sell it. Can you get a permit retroactively or do you have to decide it’s worth the fine?
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Thank you! I am fed up with the constant misuse of the word ‘war’ for all manner of disagreements. War involves physical aggression with implied intent to kill. We cannot have wars on objects or ideals, it is semantically impossible. It trivializes real war, and militarizes everyday speech, helping to minimize the idea of war allowing real death to be perpetuated by our own military.
Who was the last president who didn’t wage war? Sadly, it is built into how we function as a country. If there are times when their is no war, we invent new enemies to get back into our regularly scheduled bombing…
This might be flagged as off-topic, but BoingBoing needs to start taking responsibility for how they use language to communicate. Please be more thoughtful and cognizant of how language is used to propagandize.
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War on improper use of the word “war”!
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And this is why people get snarky on BoingBoing lately. Doctorow–and it mostly is just Doctorow–goes off on these wild-ass stories without making any effort to get the facts or make sure he’s correct. He’ll rarely acknowledge his errors after being called out.
And a small contingent of BB readers will try to dogpile on anyone who points out the factual errors. It’s bizarre.
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Same as when people use “violence” or “rape” for mere transgressions. War is seriously cold sheezut, and is different from fining people. War is so messed up that our country hasn’t had the balls to declare war since WWII.
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it would be interesting to learn how this affects gopro photography, which is sometimes sponsored by gopro, is, of course video, and may, at times,conflict with the traditional wilderness philosophy.
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Well, I was going to say “1) I’d like to see them try to prove I took photos in their forest and 2) it won’t take many photos before they’ll run out of $1000s to extract out of me. Hahahaha.” But I am glad to hear it’s not something I’m likely to run afoul of.
I suspect just like many FCC rules, this is bureaucracy primarily rather than legislation but please do vote some crappy people out of office. The precise number of crappy people I would like out is “all” but use your own discretion.
However, with all the horrid things our elected officials (including legislators!) are doing, I’m not quite sure why this was the straw that you decided signified the end of tolerance for elected officials.
I like the cut of your jib.
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Yup, it is 7 hours later and Corey has not updated the post to correct the blatant errors of fact in his post. CD SOP for BB. It was largely BB and Corey who turned me on to the dangers of secrecy, IP maximalists and DRM lock in, and I’ve liked lots of his Guardian essays and such, so it is really frustrating to read BS from a person who I’ve trusted over the years to tell me true things. And, BB, used to be all over people who failed to correct stuff on the web - or that was my impression of BB, as an exemplar of how ethical internet journalism and web blogging. To now see the opposite is frustrating.
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I favor precision in such matters; but it is important to remember that “up to” suggests that there may be room for… ‘discretion’ in the application of fines and fees. That isn’t exactly a virtue, given the likely incentives involved.
Some violations are more egregious than others, and some permit applications more complex than others, so you can’t be 100% 1-size-fits-all; but discretion is usually a dangerous toy.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record let me say, yet again:
Big government proponents, I’m pleased to introduce you to big government.
New, undisputable, photographic proof of Sasquatch is one thing. Illegal photographic proof is something else. It’ll be well worth the fine.
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I am becoming more and more dissatisfied with BoingBoing. There is a very strong establishment slant to many posts, an unquestioning acceptance of technology, and a refusal to acknowledge silicon Valley’s complicity in abetting government wrong-doing, as well as excusing coorporate authoritarianism. Besides caring about internet privacy, there is no discussion of the very destructive processes of modernity and how businesses (capitalizing on government funded science) are so quickly able to mollify dissenters. Being so easily enamored with NEW lust inducing consumer products is not a good thing.
Every two years there is a large propaganda campaign and people line up to pay the $600 tax to have a more efficent GPS tracker/NSA spyware in their pocket. Yes tech is flashy and interesting, but so what! what is it really providing us in terms of quality of life? A high tech bubble surrounded by acid oceans and toxic land, living inside plastic boxes drugged out on hi-def fantasies.
We all need to stop being seduced by the robotic siren song leading us to computerized euthanasia.
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You or I couldn’t film a movie in times square or the grand canyon without a permit.
I wish I could like this more than once.
There’s actually a chart in the forest service handbook breaking it down by “cast and crew size” and man-hours chargeable to the Forest Service. Interestingly, the fees are not remitted to Washington-- they stay with whatever forest/wilderness issued the permit.
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