YouTube creators and federal parks charging a fee/license

[Spaceman Spiff]

Why should anyone who makes money off of our National Parks NOT pay a fee?

 

[bullfrog !]

Part of the problem is National Parks have not been funded well enough for years in order to deal with the huge crowds that have been created by the “free advertising” of the internet. Parks depend on anonymity to protect certain areas where they don’t have the money to protect. Funny story, while in a remote area of the park a visitor found some perfect artifacts and turned them into the Park Headquarters. They were asked where they were found so they could be reburied exactly as they were found! Yes there is a problem! Lol!!!

 

[egilbe]

Part of the problem is National Parks have not been funded well enough for years in order to deal with the huge crowds that have been created by the “free advertising” of the internet. Parks depend on anonymity to protect certain areas where they don’t have the money to protect. Funny story, while in a remote area of the park a visitor found some perfect artifacts and turned them into the Park Headquarters. They were asked where they were found so they could be reburied exactly as they were found! Yes there is a problem! Lol!!!

I have no problem paying a small fee. I do have a problem with paying a small fee, the time spent waiting and then a denial of permit.

I think it was in Montana, or Wyoming a young boy scout found some rusty cans on National Park land. Being the responsible steward that Boy Scouts are taught to be, he gathered up the trash and told a park ranger what he had done, I'm sure expecting to be praised. Instead, he and his father were cited and fined for disturbing historical artifacts. To this day, I won't pick up rusty cans on public land after reading that story.

 

[Morgana]

I'm guessing there was more to that story (assuming what you read was true). I've been on at least one trail upkeep trip (I think it was at Three Rivers petroglyph area, NM) where they told us not to pick up anything that looked human-made, even if that seemed ridiculous/like it was obvious trash. The point was, it was a protected area, all kinds of things can be historical evidence, they didn't want 1001 untrained people making decisions about what to preserve or not.

A couple years ago I was on the Merritt Island, FL, road that runs parallel to Canaveral National Seashore, saw a gopher turtle in the road, and stopped to get it safely into the grass. A guy in a pickup truck stopped and told me he'd done that once and got arrested for trafficking wildlife. I'm thinking hmm, yeah, and I bet you innocently put it in the back of your truck because that patch of grass a mile down looked /so/ much more turtle friendly ... People say (and write) a lot of stuff. Anything's possible, but I wouldn't necessarily make life decisions based on it.

Good idea to make sure your good deeds are actually wanted. But once you're sure of that, no need to go and announce them to a cop

PS Those turtles make a pretty scary hissing sound! I was probably 10x its size and I still backed off and just nudged it the rest of the way with my foot. Impressive critter.

 

[bullfrog !]

A small fee won’t come close to solving the situation caused by videos “shared” on social media. The huge increase in visitation in areas “highlighted” on social media is going to cost millions of dollars to even control the over use damage caused never the less preserve what is left of the resource in my opinion. Sad part about it is in many cases over use results in closures so maybe the only way future generations will get to see our National Parks will be from old YouTube videos! No one is saying you can’t take pictures or share them, but if they are used on social media for anyone to make a profit and cause the damage we have seen from over use those who have done that should pay to at least help prevent more damage. Until federal lands are funded well enough to preserve them as they should be with the existing laws we have, people don’t need to be encouraged to visit fragile or over crowded areas just so a bunch of profit can be made. Those rusty cans were probably from a historical mining site with bullet holes in the top because the miner couldn’t read the opening instructions on the side of the beer can, dam new technology! Lol!!! What do you want to bet they will have to put a fence up to keep people out after they see the video on YouTube!

 

[wayne49]

It's true about the prohibition on removing rusty cans and other artifacts of early mining operations. HighDesertRanger posted that info years ago.
Historical preservation.
Pack in, pack out. Leave it as you found it.

 

[Cajunwolf]

I tend to agree with @Morgana on the abusing nature issue and not leaving a trace; this is a big issue for the parks, BLM, and national monuments. I've had problems with Youtubers thinking they had a right to tell me I had to wait for them to finish filming before going back to my campsite, which was rude, to say the least, and if it were brief, I wouldn't have had an issue. They took nearly a half hour and had the road/path blocked by their production. They also had a permit, and when I talked to a Ranger the next day, I was told they were in the wrong. She also apologized for being understaffed, which is the real issue; it's not just budget either. She said they have trouble with people who, if they have the training, don't want the job. It doesn't pay enough, and some humans can be risky to deal with, you know, A-Holes. That and there are too few going into forestry and land management these days. There are so many people in the popular spots now that they are destroying what used to be pristine and driving the natural wildlife father back, crowding their already overcrowded habitat. The cost of permitting pays for the strain on already overworked staff, preventing them from efficiently doing the jobs they are hired to do. I don't think a family or small-time Youtubers filming a vacation or YouTube production from their campsite needs a permit or fee. At all other times, they [Youtubers] need to pay a small reasonable fee if their channel is monetized to help out with the additional resources they can consume, and if it weren't for the park management and Rangers, they wouldn't have what we have now to film in the first place; it would be the wild west all over again without management, enforcement, and regulations; the nature of human nature dictates this. Sad, but it is what it is.

 

[Frood]

Certainly it should be a case-by-case or common sense basis...I would think.

If a youtuber is set up in a campsite, he or she is already 'occupying' that space.

Suppose they set up a camera and tripod 10 feet from their RV, a couple of reflectors, maybe a table and a couple chairs, and film an hour long 'talking heads' or 'explainer' video....I see no harm or wear-and-tear or disruption to the park or forest, even if the background is visible in the video.

Of course if a bunch of adrenaline charged and rowdy athletes and sports enthusiasts blast in to the park with 10 loud fast dune buggies or turbo-charged ATVs and each with multiple go-pro cameras and powerful LED driving lights and a huge entourage of cast and crew, a food trailer, support vehicles, and lots of extras and plans to make the next youtube viral mega-block-buster, then we have a different situation.

Or so it seems to me.

I think part of the issue is that popular videos increase visitation to the parks where there hasn't been a reciprocal increase in budget...

 

[Cajunwolf]

I think part of the issue is that popular videos increase visitation to the parks where there hasn't been a reciprocal increase in budget...

I tend to agree with you on that, and it's both a bad and good thing. The rangers say about three out of ten clean up after themselves, and you can see that if you hang around any of the popular areas. Back in the fall, before I parked for the winter, I was in one of my favorite ares near a state park and there was trash everywhere. If folks would just pick up after themselves it would be a different world.

 

[Frood]

I tend to agree with you on that, and it's both a bad and good thing. The rangers say about three out of ten clean up after themselves, and you can see that if you hang around any of the popular areas. Back in the fall, before I parked for the winter, I was in one of my favorite ares near a state park and there was trash everywhere. If folks would just pick up after themselves it would be a different world.

Still needs to be an increase in budget though since generally facilities and infrastructure will degrade more quickly with increased usage. Roads develop more potholes more quickly, pit toilets need to be pumped more frequently, septic may need to be upgraded and increased, may require more first-aid or rescue personnel... Just a few things that would necessitate a bigger budget while not necessarily being the result of people behaving badly.

 

[tx2sturgis]

Why should anyone who makes money off of our National Parks NOT pay a fee?

If it's a public space where you are legally allowed to be, (national park, state park, national forest, BLM desert, city park, public road, highway, sidewalk, etc) and if the activity such as filming is a 'low impact' activity, I see no legal or credible reason to impose an additional fee and have to wait days or weeks for a permit.

 

[Morgana]

Some of the Carl Hiassen novels, set in Florida (for example, Sick Puppy), have wonderful scenes of vigilante revenge against litterers. Usually not something you would want to try at home ...

 

[Morgana]

It's a public space where you are legally allowed to be, (national park, state park, city park, public road, highway, sidewalk, etc) and if the activity such as filming is a 'low impact' activity, I see no legal or credible reason to impose an additional fee and have to wait days or weeks for a permit.

A few thoughts from another perspective:

Privately owned but public-access places charge fees for this sort of thing all the time.
Public (government-owned) spaces charge fees for all sorts of other things already. For example camping, park entrance, fishing permit.

If you base the requirement on the activity's impact level ...
Who's going to define what's low-impact in a way that everyone involved agrees is fair?
Who's going to be making those calls on a day-to-day basis? Who's going to train those people? Who's going to field the complaints (maybe even lawsuits) from Mister Entitled who can't see why his Humvee, klieg lights, and thumping loudspeakers are considered high impact?
Easier to have a rule that applies across the board and is based on the nature of the activity (commercial/for-profit) rather than on judging someon'es behavior (high impact or not).

Meanwhile,
Who's going to pay for the costs created by increased visitor numbers?
Better to charge a fee that attaches to a specific action (commercial recording), without which you can still enjoy the park, than to charge a fee that everyone has to pay (like increased park fees, or a poorer park experience, or damaged areas declared off limits).
And even if you don't blame wear-and-tear on the YouTube hordes, there's still wear-and-tear, and parks are still not rich. What's wrong with seeking the same kind of funding stream that a for-profit entity would?

I can see no legal or credible reason why someone should expect to be entitled to run a profit-making enterprise in an area that other people have paid to preserve and maintain.

Ask not what your park can do for you, ask what you can do for your park.

 

[tx2sturgis]

Makes sense but again, why stop at the gate to the national park?

What if cities chased down anyone filming with a smartphone? The kiddos are having a birthday party..."Uh, ma'am, you cant film your kiddos in this city park without a permit".

What?

Or: I'm pedaling my bicycle along the bike path and holding a little go-pro selfie stick as I pedal...wow the sunset...and the trees, and listen to the birds....'oh no officer, I didnt know I needed a PERMIT to film in my local city park!'

Hey it sounds unlikely....but once you start sliding down a slippery slope, where does the practice end?

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

..... Hey it sounds unlikely....but once you start sliding down a slippery slope, where does the practice end?

Slippery slopes go both ways.
If you don't require permits for making money off videos shot in the park in a 'low impact' way how about other 'low impact' activities:

in popular parks professional photographers, even with hand held cameras, need a permit.​

floating through the Grand Canyon​

a girl walking around selling souvenirs (a la Mexican beaches)​

a guy driving around campsites selling firewood​

a couple in a sandwich truck at a picnic ground​

All can be done in a low impact way. If your birthday party is used on a monetized site, you should be paying a fee. I was surprised at how much money some of these travelog 'influencers' make.

I see no problem drawing the line at: making money off your activity in the park.

 

[tx2sturgis]

So how do you enforce or even determine 'making money' vs 'not making money'...this seems arbitrary to me.

Kids birthday party gets recorded in a national park by mom...uploaded to Facebook. She makes nothing, but Facebook makes millions.

Then 2 years later the photos or videos get re-used by a subsidiary of Facebook on a third party website that sells helium balloons...whatever.

Somebody somewhere is making money from almost everything we do on social media.

So is it the person holding the camera making money that matters? Or is it that somebody somewhere, maybe 10 years from now, can make some money selling photos they scraped off of Facebook or Instagram that makes it 'commercial'?

 

[bullfrog !]

Again it does not require a permit to take and share pictures or videos as long as you don’t do so over the social media for profit platforms is my understanding. Email or texting to friends and family is perfectly fine just don’t charge them for viewing! Lol!!! You can’t imagine how hard it was to get my extended family to watch our 8mm Kodac vacation films, as soon as you turned off the lights it was a stampede out the door! Now people are paying to watch them! Lol!!! I imagine the Internal Revenue Service if asked could make a determination if we would just get them enough staffing! Lol!!! Wonder if taxes are being paid by those making the profits? Having a tax number might be a good indication you should get a permit. If you are taking a tax deduction for cameras and equipment or maybe claiming you RV as a business expense? I don’t think it would be very difficult if someone really wanted to determine if you are trying to profit from a business and if the subject matter was photographed in a National Park.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

So how do you enforce or even determine 'making money' vs 'not making money'...this seems arbitrary to me .....

The same as for any copywrited work. There are companies that look for and prosecute illegal use of copywrited material. The laws and mechanism is already in place, just add NPS permits. You probably hardly even notice Used by Permission at the end of an attribution of some work.

If your childs school puts on a performance of the kids singing 'When I'm 64' by the Beatles without a license and you record it, put it on your monetized you tube channel you will probably get a letter demanding a fine or get sued. Doesn't make any difference how far down the chain it is found on a site making money they will demand payment from anyone that violated the copyright. You tube is quite diligent in removing content they think violates copywrite laws; I would guess Faceplant does too.

 

[Morgana]

The fact that a law is not completely enforceable does not mean it shouldn't exist.
It makes a statement about what a society expects of itself.
It may limit or delay /some/ of the harm (and if you're the daisy or the chipmunk that makes it through to another lifecycle, or the low-income nature-lover who can't escape from the Entitled Ones in the easy-access places but has one beloved hiking spot that still works, you'd probably like that).
It gives lawmakers and resource managers one more tool in their toolchest.
It points us in the right direction and maybe we can take the next step from there.
It brings in at least a little income.

What % of murders, or high-dollar tax evasions, are solved and successfully prosecuted? IIRC it's pretty low, but we don't consider taking those laws off the books.

Some things you can afford to be loose about when only a few people are clever and committed enough to enjoy and share them .... change once the crowds catch on. It's heartbreaking and there's no easy fix but it's gotta be dealt with.

No law can ever fully avoid (1) creating loopholes that some bad actors can take advantage of or (2) unfairly penalizing some good actors. The point is to minimize that as much as possible. Supposedly all these legal beagles that we vote into office are good at that. They should do what we hired 'em to do.

 

[Night_Sailor]

Filming & Still Photography Permits (U.S. National Park Service)

Guidance for commercial filming and still photography permits, including when permits are needed, how to apply for permits, fees, and other requirements.

www.nps.gov

A YouTuber I watch was talking about how this can impact people with a YouTube channel that films in national parks and BLM land.
I know some nomads make extra funds by doing this.

Have you seen this and could it effect you?

Land of the fee.