Wouldn’t normally share a frauditor link (so click at your peril), but this popped up on my TikTok this morning. Piqued my interest when I heard the British Transport Police “Drone Specialist” say:
If you’re uploading to YouTube and there’s potential for commercial gain then you do have to have commercial insurance.
Some years back, a chum with a microlight (little aeroplane, not a powered hangglider) which he keeps at Swansea took me for a spin around the Gower, Tenby, & Milford Haven. He refused any contribution to the fuel we’d used, but was happy to accept petrol money for the drive down to Swansea & back. He told me the cautionary tale of another light aircraft pilot at Swansea who had taken his mate up for a ride, the mate owning a travel agent’s in the city. The guy’d taken some photos (as I did myself) and used them in some of his marketing material, where a punter had seen them and notified the CAA. The CAA came down heavy, on the pilot not the travel agent, for undertaking commercial activity as a private pilot with a private pilot’s license, hence Big Jim’s refusal of avgas money, and asking me not to put my photos up online!
So, with this in mind, when I came to flying drones some 7 or 8 years later, I was a little culture-shocked to find the extent to which this attitude has been changed, and that I can apparently indulge in minor commercial activity even as an amatuer without fear of such reprisals! I haven’t as yet done anything with the drone that I’ve been paid for, and am still ‘wary’ of the situation; would Deej honour a Care Refresh claim arising out of such a flight, or would Coverdrone? As I understand it, my Grey Arrows £5million would still apply, but in any case I fly for pleasure, not profit, not mine and certainly not anyone elses’, I’m a good girl I am, mummy, I keeps my 'and on my 'apenny…
Not watched the video’s but going off the discussion here.
In the US the FAA say if your making money off YouTube and you have drone footage in it then yes its a commercial flight - I am sure the CAA here have the same view but they will have to prove that you used the footage to intend to make money from it - so you could upload it to your fledgling channel and make nothing to start with then boom it goes viral or the news want to use the footage and pay you for it then its still not a commercial flight as it was never intended to make money.
But with these frauditor’s they are making money from their content so yes they would need commercial insurance - but a fear that a lot of content makers thing they have equipment insurance and maybe third party for what every reason and think that it covers drones too - a mate of mine who is a very successful film maker for bands and brands for ages thought this to be the case till I asked him who he was using for the drone coverage and I pointed out that it needed to specifically cover the usage of drones. So maybe others do.
I also remember one of these clowns use to be the "poster boy " for coverdrone and would mention them often - so maybe they are well versed in the rules.
Also who’s going to tell him the FPV UK don’t do commercial anymore - oops
I actually had a conversation with the CAA about scenario 3 and the person i spoke to said it was non commercial. The reason being: at the time of the flight you wouldn’t be operating in a professional capacity, and the INTENTION of the flight wasn’t comercial gain.
it always boiled down to the intention at the time of the flight.
caveat: their interpretation may now have changed.
