What are the California State Park Copyrights?
 

I haven't been able to find any information on the California State Park system regarding the commercial use of photos and videos taken in the system. Specifically, I am wondering about selling them for stock photography/video and for use as B-roll in my own commercial productions. Does anyone know?

TIA

Do you mean photos you've obtained from the park's administration made by their photographers or do you mean photos you've made yourself while visiting the parks?

Have no specific knowledge but I can't imagine there would be any problem using pictures you've made for any purpose you want without explicit permission as long as it didn't contain images of people or of emblems and trademarks that might require releases.

Have you contacted their media relations office? ... Media Contacts

The leap of logic is good in theory but since the US Natl. Park Service has restrictions on shooting (seems more for video than for still photos) and requires fees for commercial video production on their property, it would make sense to learn their rules before you do something that might be, in their view, actionable.

Steve's link to the media contacts would be a good place to start. They should be able to give you the rules and regs. That way you'll know where you stand before you proceed.

There are essentially two questions here:

1. The permission to take pictures on the property.
2. The permission to publish said pictures.

Copyright law extends only to creative works of an author or artist. It can't be applied to nature. If you have permission to use a camera on the property, there is no law that would prevent you from publishing images of nature.

Now, the parks service may have a stipulation that says they will only grant you permission to capture images for personal use, but that's part of their permission policy and has nothing to do with copyright.

This is for photos and video I make myself. Media Relations bounced me to the Bureau of Land Management....will post here when I find out more....it's looking like a permit is required.

possibly talk to the poster that started this thread
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/under-wat...ldflowers.html

Filming rules: http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/782/files/film.pdf. Also see California Film Commission.

Photography rules: Still Photography and Permits on US and California Public Land).

Comparing these two suggests a significant bias against film/video compared to photography, apparently assuming most filming operations will be large ones. So what happens if you're using a Canon 5D Mark II on a tripod to record video? ;-)

There's a huge thread somewhere about shooting video, and to some degree still photography on US public lands (Natl. Forest, Natl. Parks and BLM lands). It's not a cut-and-dried subject by any means.

There's many ways to deal with the regs and I'm not going to advise you to go afoul of the law. That said, I've not read anything about people being prosecuted for using footage shot on public lands in a commercial production.

YMMV