Does a wildlife/landscape photographer need a permit if they sell prints ?? What if nobody buys them ?? Just curious..not playing an angle
I also believe if your profiting from the land you should give back but it's hard to know where to draw the line...is gritty making profits ? He seems to be living well..which is awesome...but its hard to determine how much his films contribute to that..
Tough case
In some cases, yes, they need a permit before taking any pics. BLM law is the same as the NFS laws.
When do I need a film permit? | Bureau of Land Management (blm.gov)
Your statements kind of hit the nail on the head. How do they determine where to draw the line. This is really just one of the many cases of where technology has changed, and the laws need to keep up. The laws were updated a few years back, but apparently there was still too much left to interpretation. This is the main portion that relates to those making a living from a youTube channel:
For purposes of this definition,
creation of a product for sale includes a film, videotape, television broadcast, or
documentary of participants in commercial sporting or
recreation event created for the purpose of generating income.
The people who were being fined look to be making some of their income off their youTube channels, or trying to, for the most part. The law rewrite a few years ago emphasized that the point of the law was to protect the land/resource, not to prevent people from taking pictures or video. This has actually been a hot topic in video and photography circles for a couple decades now.
It is kind of like how illuminated reticles in scopes were illegal for big game hunting in Idaho for some time. The laws eventually were updated to align with the realities of modern sporting technologies but there were most likely a few people who didn't pay attention to the law and got burned. Now, the range finding and automated ballistics compensating scopes that are becoming popular are still illegal in ID (for big game hunting) but you can hunt with a battery or tritium powered reticle if you want. I would be willing to bet there are guys using those new ranging/ballistics scopes that never even thought to check the local laws before heading out to fill their tags. Some of them may even be posting incriminating videos to youTube for all to see!
I agree that people or corporations should not be able to profit at the expense of the land or interfere with the general public's ability to use the land (closed film set etc.), but I am not so sure someone shouldn't be able to take a video of their vacation and post it on the web without fear of getting a fine or jail time.