Do you need Permits?

That playdough

That playdough

SolTV
Hello guys,

I had a follower contact me today and told me i should take down my video because it could potentialy get me in trouble, and that i should get a permit for filming anything i do which to me sounds extremely expensive and i dont think many or any youtubers really do that, so im just curious as to what my "rights" are in california (bay area). Ive googled it a few times and some people say you always need one and others say if youre only 2-3 people youll be fine..

thanks for the help
 
don't know what you mean, seems like you left some kind of story out of the picture and you can upload videos without permits. there is no laws saying you can't record video that will never be ok with everyone.
 
bigattck said:
don't know what you mean, seems like you left some kind of story out of the picture and you can upload videos without permits. there is no laws saying you can't record video that will never be ok with everyone.
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I mean if im doing osmething out in the public, lets say for example vlogging that i need a permit to do that or if im talking ot strangers lets say a "prank" video i will also need a permit for that.
 
A while back we were going to make a video in the “ghost town” of Calico, CA. Which is owned and run by the county of San Bernardino. I called and asked about permits for my “little youtube channel video” and was told that YES, to video there (any publicly available video) i would have to get a permit which was about $2,000...

In 2015 I was involved in a small budget documentary film being made at Salton Sea. There was a lot of hype and media coverage around the event that was being filmed and the MORNING OF THE EVENT I got a call from someone in the Ca State Parks Dept. That had somehow tracked me down, Advising us that if we were going to be filming on any of the State Park Property, we would have to fill out a bunch of forms and applications, pay for State Park Employees to be with us at all times, purchase a 1 million dollar bond/insurance and pay for permits - all tolled it would be about $10,000 and would take 3-6 months to process.
This film was going to (and has) generated a lot of publicity for Salton Sea, so we told the State Park lady she and the state of California could go F’-themselves and we would be very careful to NOT give the parks department any free publicity and instead would film only on the private, county (Riverside and Imperial), and federal land, all of which had owners begging for us to film there/giving us free stuff, etc.
So yah, if you are filming on State property, they are like leeches and depending on the county, they could be bad too, so you should check into it.
 
Buying a permit to film a video sounds absolutely f*****g ridiculous, but I wouldn't be surprised if that were actually the case.
Capitalism, ho!
 
Cities tend to go to town with permits and stuff. Some countries even enforce architectural copyrights -- so sometimes you can't film inside/outside buildings without permission from the architect designer if he/she is still alive (or for however long the building isn't in public domain). I think a similar mentality applies to California's signature Hollywood sign:
https://hollywoodsign.org/filming-the-sign/
Even though it's on display for the entire city to see, I think you're technically supposed to blur it out of pictures and film unless you have a permit.. x_x

If you think you might need a permit, I'd investigate it more. Everyone is always wanting to make us buy permits for filming videos, so it wouldn't surprise me if you needed one in San Francisco... :/
 
Wow this is kinda surprising to hear, seems really crazy to demand a permit to film in a public place!

Its certainly not a law or rule over here in the UK, everyone has the right to film in a public place. Hopefully you can get around it and still film :)
 
Some rules of the thumb from me.
Public places - center of the city - usually OK (but avoid as much as possible close shots of random people).
Residential areas - in general OK unless it is forbidden by law (in some countries) but even more try to avoid shots of local people (they make take you to court for this).
Private businesses (especially small one) ask for permission.
 
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They might be just trying to scare you. You don't need a permit to vlog. But you do need permission if you interviewed someone. The rule tends to be that if you zoom on specific peoples faces, you should get permission. If you're just showing a crowd of people then it doesn't matter.
 
For me when it came to getting permits I would ask the "Mayor" (or office) of a small county and/or the city government. Granted it does take 1-6 months to get a good response. Which depending on the city and what you need this can be free or cost a lot of money. My city allows you to block off streets for filming but would charge a hefty price. But if you just want to film on the corner with permission they don't charge a dime. So it really depends on what you need and/or looking for.

For movies/film production you definitely need permits or make sure no one but people on your talent release forms are in front of the camera. (Same with logos, etc.) For Youtube videos if you are in a public area (at least in the U.S) you can film anything without any kind of permission. But the second you go into certain buildings it's completely different. So just be careful on where you film and who is getting into your shots that seems rude and/or aggressive.
 
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