Each country has its own rules on what can and cannot be filmed or photographed for commercial purposes. Whether it is from the air or on the ground you will need permissions in writing in most countries of the world.
And its not just military areas. Try filming Swiss banks without written permission, if you want a night or two of free but non salubrious accommodation.
There are charges in many countries for filming or photographing tourist sites, whether private or commercial. That’s the way they make money to keep the sites going.
Many countries have privacy laws which mean you need permission to photograph or film someone’s home, or at least to use those photographs commercially.
Even TV crews filming in a crowded street can need permission. Each person who’s face can be seen and identified will need to sign a waiver form if you don’t want to blurr the face out.
Most of the time other than perhaps prisons, banks or military establishments can be photographed for private use but if you are tempted to use those photographs commercially you had better make really sure of the laws beforehand. And that is not always easy.
gallois wrote:
but if you are tempted to use those photographs commercially you had better make really sure of the laws beforehand
That was my feeling as long as you keep the pictures along your “cats picture collection” no one will come after you, and as you said there is a whole thing about photography privacy & security even in public space, if you are brave try Swiss banks or Las Vegas casinos 
At least for ZIPVA there is something clear in the law and well documented in official VFR/IGN map but certainly not in AIP
PS: I do recall one written tourist guide with the top 20 places where people are not allowed to take pictures, it was well documented with pictures, two places were in Pyongyang, I wonder how many people go in the summer there
Airborne_Again wrote:
Publishing your pictures is another matter
What does publishing even mean today with FB and similar?
Yes with FB, You Tube etc its a big problem. Who is actually the publisher? It more then often takes the courts to decide.
LeSving wrote:
What does publishing even mean today with FB and similar?
It means letting other people see the pictures.
gallois wrote:
Each country has its own rules on what can and cannot be filmed or photographed for commercial purposes. Whether it is from the air or on the ground you will need permissions in writing in most countries of the world.
The first sentence is correct, but the second one is 100% wrong. In most countries, you need permission if you are on private land, NOT if you shoot from a public place. The air is usually considered a public space, even in most EU countries. France is an exception, as for whatever reason it raises issues in certain ways, e.g. the Eiffel Tower illuminations (only the lights, NOT the building itself!) or the Pyramide du Louvre are copyrighted and you need a permit. Not that any Instagram aficionado gave a hoot…
But as I said earlier – these rules are country specific, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach here.
Country dependent, for sure.
In the 3rd world you need to be more careful to not p1ss off somebody “important”. When I landed on Easyjet at Kalamata, Greece, the pilot warned the cabin to not take any photos of the mil planes there (just a load of training TPs AFAICS). It was fairly obvious that Greece had a go at Easyjet over this…
In the UK you can take pics in public places so long as you don’t make somebody look ridiculous (broadly speaking). The main channels like the BBC are super-ultra-totally-PC and often blank out faces, but they don’t need to. Also long lenses tend to get people excited, especially on a beach if the photographer is wearing a trenchcoat. But this is not “aerial photography”
Airborne_Again wrote:
It means letting other people see the pictures.
It surely has to mean more than than. Publishing pictures in a magazine is very different from publishing pictures in a private group on FB, or even a video on Youtube. Not to mention just showing pictures to friends and family.
LeSving wrote:
It surely has to mean more than than. Publishing pictures in a magazine is very different from publishing pictures in a private group on FB, or even a video on Youtube. Not to mention just showing pictures to friends and family.
Not from the point of view of Swedish legislation. The word used is “sprida” (literally “spread”). According to legal conventions, it means making something (potentially) available to more than a handful persons. So showing aerial pictures to a few friends and family members without having a permit is ok, but not in the other cases you mention – except possibly in the FB group if it has very few members. That it is a private group doesn’t matter.
I typed up a long reply on general stuff to do with libel etc but then decided it would be off topic for aerial photos
The bottom line is that it 100% depends on a) whether you p1ss somebody off, and b) whether they can get you (financially or criminally).
And of course the person in question needs to find out first, and – unless you publish it in some national newspaper or some such – that depends mainly on how many enemies you have. There is no such thing as a “private forum”. Absolutely every “private forum” leaks, and it leaks much more if the author is either (a) not a generally liked person (and GA has plenty of those) or (b) the author is a moderator on the forum and some past members have fought battles there
Interesting that Sweden needs some number of people to see the material. The problem I see is that, as I write above, you can’t be sure that one of say five members of a “private forum” has not re-posted it outside, to a wider audience. I don’t know the UK law on “how many” but for libel the sufficient number is ONE other person.
These days, you can get satellite imagery which is pretty good, and while google maps will suppress anything which anybody complains about, there are other data sources which don’t do that.
This is quite funny – a top secret military airport in Albania. I got these pics 2 days ago:
You can see top secret stealthy fighters there
that must be where they keep the nuclear bombs
I don’t think they store them above the ground
