Fee for commercial photography and filming in wilderness areas?

Thoughts on this?

https://www.federalregister.gov/art...m_medium=email&utm_source=federalregister.gov

I'm thinking this would REALLY hurt authors and commercial photographers, who wouldn't be able to take pictures of wilderness areas and share them on websites and in guidebooks.

I don't know much about this at the moment. Will need to read more.

This is a refinement of an existing regulatory regime to add filming. As much as I might hate to see the directive's implementation generally, it's tough for the Forest Service to defend in court a distinction between commercial photography and filming from the other commercial activities that are also required to get permits and pay fees.

Bad idea. But no surprise; just more "transparency."

I understand it's pretty easy to get a filming permit if the government approves of your message or the purpose of the commercial product. Obviously nothing critical of the government or otherwise subversive, in the opinion of the government official deciding whether or not to allow you a permit for filming.

You don't need a permit to take photos or video in the wilderness unless the "primary purpose" of your visit is a sale of goods or services (or you charge a participation fee, or a couple more exceptions). This new proposal won't change that.
It's terribly drafted: it lists circumstances when a permit "may" be granted, but it's all phrased in the negative: if the use "will not disrupt..." There's enough ambiguity to keep a lawyer fat and happy for years, but a reasonable reading is that this just repeats existing statute. (Don't grant a special use permit for a film that would require use of motor vehicles in a wilderness area? No kidding!) In the end, it's the statute that matters.

Two restrictions on filming in wilderness that may be news to many but are not new:
- no advertising.
-must have a purpose of "dissemination of information about the wilderness". This includes wilderness recreation, scenery, history, science, etc., but it would be tough to use a wilderness area in a scene for say, a movie about a fictional war (even if you could do it without vehicles or otherwise breaking the wilderness rules).

Explosions and car chases not allowed.

nartreb said:

but it would be tough to use a wilderness area in a scene for say, a movie about a fictional war (even if you could do it without vehicles or otherwise breaking the wilderness rules).

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There is one way around the problem. When the 2003 film COLD MOUNTAIN about the civil war deserter who returned to his home in Cold Mountain NC was filmed they filmed it in Romania. Cold Mt. NC is located in the Shining Rock wilderness.

ARE YOU FREAKIN KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fine me for taking a picture of a tree.
What the hell is the government thinking.
THIS IS JUST PLAN STUPID!
My tax dollars at work.

walker said:

ARE YOU FREAKIN KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fine me for taking a picture of a tree.
What the hell is the government thinking.
THIS IS JUST PLAN STUPID!
My tax dollars at work.

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When the lump from that baseball subsides, you might want to reconsider your post. You can take all the pictures of trees you want. You just can't enter a wilderness area for the primary purpose of making a buck off your tree pictures without meeting the same requirements as the other folks who are using the nation's publicly-owned assets for business purposes. Unless your name is Cliven Bundy, perhaps.

sardog1 said:

When the lump from that baseball subsides, you might want to reconsider your post. You can take all the pictures of trees you want. You just can't enter a wilderness area for the primary purpose of making a buck off your tree pictures without meeting the same requirements as the other folks who are using the nation's publicly-owned assets for business purposes. Unless your name is Cliven Bundy, perhaps.

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Haha - nice! The way Bundy captures the light and brings attention to smaller details is really inspiring to some people. I'm not a big fan of his portfolio though. I bet he won't like this change if it goes through - he seems to be a bigger supporter of the 'ways things used to be'.

Honestly, I get the point of the policy, but to me it's not a matter of are they making money off of it, but are they being intrusive and paying for that right to be intrusive. I'm kind of curious how this became an issue - if it's a larger problem (lots of people do it), it was found as a loophole that is being preemptively closed, or one person was doing this and really ticked off the wrong person and now no one can play.

Read this article from outside magazine.

http://www.outsideonline.com/news-f...&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=09252014&

"Forest Service spokesperson Larry Chambers told the Oregonian that permits will cost up to $1,500, and those caught so much as taking an iPhone photo without clearance will be fined $1,000."

I need to get a permit to take ANY photographs in any wilderness area. Permits cost up to $1500.00
If I sell one photo from my hiking the Caribou Wilderness I'm in violation and can be fined.



Somebody want to buy this photo so I can become an outlaw?
Walker

I put ice on my lump.....Thanks

I'm guessing that the photo has to be taken from within the wilderness, and not simply be of the wilderness, right? Otherwise someone might get in trouble for these: https://www.google.com/maps/place/P...ata=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x718061af0b734758

Also, a protip for consuming media is to replace the words 'up to' with 'at most'. For example, how can anyone afford to buy a car when they can cost 'up to $4.5 million dollars'?!.

I'm guessing if you sold that photo it would be similar to rolling a stop sign or screwing up a minor deduction on your taxes - technically breaking the law, but it's not easily enforced.

You just need to sell the photos for more to accommodate the fee.

This article from OUTSIDE seems to me to be clearer than the one cited above: http://www.outsideonline.com/news-f...&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=09262014&

What's clear is that the govt was probing public sentiment to find out how far they could push this new level of central control and censorship. They hit a nerve, so they quickly backed off. "Oh, just kidding! Oh, here's a 'clarification!' Oh, we really didn't mean that..." Wait for the next probe in some new area...

TCD said:

What's clear is that the govt was probing public sentiment to find out how far they could push this new level of central control and censorship. They hit a nerve, so they quickly backed off. "Oh, just kidding! Oh, here's a 'clarification!' Oh, we really didn't mean that..." Wait for the next probe in some new area...

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A large portion of my job is understanding what staff are thinking. We try really hard to gather feedback but most people don't give any unless they are super happy, or mildly (or more) annoyed. Most people are generally happy enough so we typically only hear from the same few people, who generally provide consistent quality of feedback. When we introduce a change we generally don't hear back until it is implemented and actually a problem. Generally once we hear back about a problem from a lot of people the issue becomes obvious, but it can be difficult to anticipate beforehand. This issue seem analogous to what the FS ran into here. I'm glad they seem to be receptive to the response. It's a good way to build credibility even if some people apply a negative stigma to 'backtracking'. As in hiking, sometimes it's the right call.

Moral of the story/my point here is: If you don't like something, speak-up and let people know! It won't always work, but if you don't give any feedback it definitely won't.

I'm inclined to give the head of the Forest Service a pass on this one, given what this article has to say – YMMV. Hope the link works for you folks:

Journalists slam Forest Service over wilderness permits

Meh

Much ado about nothing for individual professional still photographers, especially if you are simply shooting on speculation for potential future use by multiple parties of unknown status ( not on assignment). A tripod is not a "prop", so if that's all you are using and not disrupting other visitors, there should be no need for a permit.

According to the Forest Service, individual professional and amateur photographers will generally "not need a permit unless they use models, actors or props." Commercial filming that involves groups of more than two people, on the other hand, will require permitting. A group of up to three people would likely pay around $30 for a permit, the agency said, while a large crew of 70 or more people might need to shell out around $800.

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EDIT: Just to back that up a bit:

The Forest Service definition of sets and props states that “a hand-held camera or a camera mounted on a tripod” is not a prop, and the definition for the agencies in the DOI states that “a camera on a tripod, without the use of any other equipment” is not a prop.

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