Filming in front of a building

[Guillaume]

Guys,

when I take off near my place I need to pass a 3 story house, and a lady complained about me saying I was not allowed to do that.

Can someone give me a good resource about the law behind this?
I was under the impression that as long as I don't specifically fly in front of her window peering through, I was ok.

Thanks
Guillaume

 

[pyrate]

you are not going to find a hard fast rule
Just fly somewhere else, why antagonize people

 

[Guillaume]

That's not really helpful. Unless going to a desert area there are always buildings. Say you're in a park, there's still chances there's a building in line of sight. My question is for that case. Of course, no matter what the law says, I'm not going to fly in front of someone's window.

Found this: http://www.andrewkantor.com/legalrights/Legal_Rights_of_Photographers.pdf

 

[pyrate]

It is all good. I just stopped flying around my neighborhood.
If it bothers people, why do it. you are free to fly there.
I do not think the law is rock solid black and white

and I hate that we are pushing laws, seems like that never works out well

 

[Guillaume]

Agreed. If I can avoid to bother people, I will. I just want to be a bit more educated in the cases where people are being d*$%s: I'm not going to drive 50 miles out just because some guy thinks that I'm invading his privacy while I'm flying my solo in a park, 200 ft high and 1000 ft out from his windows.

 

[PdxSteve]

Have you talked to her and just explained what you are doing, and that you have 0 interest in her or her house?

I had a neighbor come out once (never met him before) claiming I'm spying on him and his house. He was pretty irate and seemed to be a conspiracy type lol. I assured him my Solo was just staring off at the horizon above the hills and trees, filming the sunset. I was up at 400 feet. I invited him to come over and take a look at my view on the tablet of what I was seeing and he came over and peered over my shoulder. I then pointed the camera down and he could see about a 15 block area and all of the houses were very tiny. I just said I didn't even know which house was his and I didn't care either. I was just flying getting an aerial view. He actually started thinking it was pretty cool once he started watching me. I asked if he wanted to fly it for a minute (400 feet up...not really gonna get in trouble...) and he did and he got the biggest damn smile on his face, just like we all did our first time flying Solo. I kinda made a friend. Now if he hears my Solo out and about he just comes over to watch.

Long and short of it is there are a lot of uninformed people out there. They only hear of the reports in the news which are always reporting someone doing something bad, not good, and assume anyone with a drone is doing the same types of stupid things. A little education, and given in a teaching manner as opposed to a "you're wrong dumbass, I know the law" can go a long way. I'm not saying you did that, just sayin' in general... I've probably had the above scenario happen 3 times in the 5 months that I've had my Solo with someone not happy. Not exactly the same, but someone with a stereotype that I was able to dissuade with compassion and understanding of their fear/worry, and educating them. They ARE coming from a place of fear.

 

[Guillaume]

PdxSteve, I'm 100% with you.
This lady was actually filming me for reporting me to the police, I guess she wanted some proof (of what?).
It took a while for me to educate this person. Somehow she said she saw my camera pointing to her place specifically and she thought I was intruding her privacy, while the truth is that I was just taking off to take an aerial view of the fog.
I even offered her to see my footage on the gopro. She said "yes but you're going to edit it" - that's how paranoid she was- so of course I offered for her to see it immediately to dismiss her fears.

I guess it worked because at some point she stopped filming me and put the camera away, saying she would look for what the law said. It also helped when I showed her my FAA registration tag, because even if it's unrelated, I think it showed that I had taken the steps to comply to regulations = not a bad person after all.

That's why I came here asking for what the law says

 

[Chuck]

I am with PdxSteve as well. I have done the exact same thing as he did. People think these cameras have zoom lenses or something. Once they see how close we would have to fly to actually look in, they get the idea, and then comes the questions. I love educating people about our hobby.