Drones for Commercial Use Ruled Legal

A judge on the National Transportation Safety Board has ruled that the commercial use of small drones is in fact legal, although for the last six years, the Federal Aviation Administration has repeatedly said the contrary.

Over at The Verge,

Today Judge Patrick Geraghty dismissed a $10,000 fine levied by the FAA against Raphael Pirker, a Swiss drone operator who used a camera drone to film on the University of Virginia campus. "At the time of respondent's model aircraft operation ... there was no enforceable FAA rule or FAR Regulation application to model aircraft or for classifying model aircraft as an UAS," the judge writes.

Raphael Pirker had been fined $10,000 by the Federal Aviation Administration for using a drone to shoot a promotional video, won a dismissal yesterday of the charge of reckless flying. An administrative law judge determined the FAA had no authority over small unmanned aircraft when it imposed the first-ever such fine on a drone operator.