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NH Supreme Court To Rule On Bigfoot Video Shoot In Public Park
alphadogg writes with this excerpt from the Boston Globe: "On a whim two years ago, performance artist Jonathan Doyle paraded around the bustling peak of New Hampshire's Mount Monadnock in a $40 Bigfoot costume from iParty. He thought his deadpan video interviews with hikers describing their Bigfoot sightings would be worth a few chuckles on YouTube, and might boost the profile of his other artwork. But the staff at Monadnock State Park found the Yeti act abominable. When Doyle returned with friends to shoot a sequel, the park manger quashed the production and ordered Doyle off the mountain, insisting he needed a state permit to film a movie in the park. Bigfoot stepped up with a lawsuit, alleging that the park's permit regulations are unconstitutional. The New Hampshire Supreme Court next month will hear Doyle's complaint. Though many elements of the dispute border on the absurd, the case raises some serious free speech issues."
There are two purposes I can see for a permit system: 1. It provides a framework to limit activities in the park, and 2. it can provide a source of funding for the park. I think in the case of the former, there are some activities one does not want done: such as building a structure. Other activities such as littering does not require the use of a permit, as normal laws quash that. In the case of the latter, it is entirely possible to just have an entrance fee for the park – if that is legal. Ultimately, I don't see a need for either need, as unsuitable excess will either happen rarely or can be punished/prevented through normal laws. Based on the text of the story, it seems to me that the park staff have no reason other than they don't like it. Which is not a valid reason in this context.
- Mitch Hedberg
If the government wins on this one, they'll get support for making the same arguments about filming on the public highways or public sidewalks.
My initial impression from the headline was that someone really thought they saw bigfoot and a judge was somehow ruling about this. I almost skipped reading the summary because of this.
Ths original submission title, 'Bigfoot' takes free speech fight to NG high court, says a lot more about what is actually happening. Why was it changed?
My name is Jacob Stein. I'm from the American Federation of Music. I've been sent to see if you gentlemen are carrying your permits.
"I am maintaining the integrity of being real" (TFA quote) is exactly what Bigfoot needs to be telling more reporters.
MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
I understand needing a permit if lots of heavy equipment needs to be dragged in and set up - like when they lay track to follow something with the camera - but to prohibit a person from using just video cameras is absurd. Shooting a movie shouldn't be an issue unless it could have an effect on the ecosystem or would require some form of construction.
A lot of times a policy is set up with good intentions but isn't specific enough so it's used as an excuse for something else. This is a good example of that. So is the U.S. Constitution.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
If he is, the state may very well have a legitimate argument for requiring a permit to film.
The decision to require the permit may have been fast-tracked because the officials didn't like the Bigfoot act, but you can bet the state will use this argument.
That doesn't mean the state will win the case, of course-- if the artist successfully proves that his efforts aren't for commercial gain, I can't see the supreme court siding with the state on this argument.
insisting he needed a state permit to film a movie in the park. Bigfoot stepped up with a lawsuit, alleging that the park's permit regulations are unconstitutional. The New Hampshire Supreme Court next month will hear Doyle's complaint. Though many elements of the dispute border on the absurd, the case raises some serious free speech issues."
What does filming location have to do with free speech?
S'pose we ain't got no union cards and we go in there and start playing anyway. Now what you gonna do about that? You gonna stop us...Stein? You're gonna look pretty funny trying to eat corn on the cob with no fucking teeth.
If there is a ban on film making everyone with a cellphone or camera is going to have to leave them behind. ....
Pretty much everyone walking around these days is capable of making a movie. Just take out your cell phone and
The law as written needs revising for current technology. His monkey suit video is really no different than everyones "I am here" holiday video that gets posted onto facebook.
They can either film in the park without permission or not, but that has nothing to do with free speech.
I don't know about the NH state parks, but the National Park Service spells out pretty clearly when permits are needed, under the general category "Commercial Filming and Still Photography Permits". Basically if it's a location not normally accessible to the public; you bring in models, sets or props; or the park service would need additional resources to monitor the activity. He's bringing in a costume, and he's doing it to advertise his other artwork, so it would probably require a permit in a national park. But small scale, there are no onerous fees: 1 - 2 people, camera & tripod only $0/day. The system is set up to keep advertisers and corporations from abusing the parks for their own uses. In the article, it sounds pretty similar for the NH state parks, except the fee is $100/day. As a photographer (who spends time in CA state parks and national parks), it doesn't sound to me like a question of free speech because they didn't deny him access, they just told him to follow the existing rules and get a necessary permit.
Dressing up like a beast and scaring people... is this really ok?
What if someone dressed up like a suicide bomber and ran into a mall with a suit of fake TNT strapped to my chest, screaming "Jihad!!"?
Of course, in the wilderness, where there is no Human Authority prevailing, you can do whatever you want. Unfortunately, Nature is not the same thing as wilderness. It would be unfortunate if people were allowed to sully Nature with wild activities like walking around in bigfoot costumes. Had he and his friends chosen to walk around new york city dressed up in big foot costumes, no one would have even noted it.
if your life is such a big joke then why should I care?
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are explicitly protected by the US Constitution. Certain other freedoms are protected either explicitly or implicitly. Freedom to make a movie is close enough to press and speech to be considered explicitly constitutionally protected, but there are other things that should be considered here. There's more involved in making a film than running a movie camera and people talking: people are doing things, i.e. for lack of a better word, engaged in expression. Freedom of expression is not the same as freedom of speech, does not have the same justifications for being protected, and is not explicitly protected by the US Constitution.
What should be considered here is not the act of filming, but what the people who are being filmed are doing. This is a reasonable concern for the people who run the Monadnock park.
For a little extra local data: Mount Monadnock is a 2000 foot climb to a bald peak; there is no road to the top. It is the second most hiked mountain in the world. Due to the heavy use of its trails and the ecological sensitivity of some features near the peak, dogs are prohibited from the park (and rightly so). Monadnock is unique in that regard in NH.
In my opinion, NH is overreacting by prohibiting these people from filming. However, the filmmakers may be acting like jerks and creating a public nuisance, in which case NH is justified in preventing them from carrying on. In any case, it's clear that the filmmakers are not contributing to political discourse, which is the justification for freedom of speech and press.
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Frankly, this only seems like an "important free speech issue" in one respect: the (quite likely) possibility that the park management are using selective enforcement of (possibly outdated) regulations against people who merely annoy them.
The notion that certain things that incidentally happen to be speech can be curtailed or limited because they are also hazardous or deeply disruptive has been more or less unproblematic as long as the notion of freedom of speech has been a matter of political possibility. However, such limitations do offer a potentially hazardous temptation for anti-speech selective enforcement(Is running around a dense residential district at 3am and shouting your head off legitimately "disturbance of the peace"? Yeah. Does that mean that it would be OK for police to ignore some disturbers of the peace and arrest those who say unpopular things? Not So Much.)
If this case turns out to be the park staff using a permitting system written back when cameras were barely man-portable and 'filming' implied a trail of havoc to selectively quash the weirdos while ignoring That Vacationing Camcorder Asshole, whose life only has meaning if they glimpse it continuously through a viewfinder, they need a smacking down.
If it turns out that the permit requirements are applied uniformly, then it becomes the much less weighty question of whether or not the decreasing size and disruptiveness of cameras makes them due for a rewrite or not...
Oh the irony! The state motto is "Live Free or Die"!
Basically, if Doyle's movie-shoot was a non-commercial venture the New Hampshire laws for commercial venture movie-shoot usages of the park facilities would not apply. Doyle would be using the park as a park visitor, Doyle and his friends would be usig the park as park visitors. Since they wanted to meet other park visitors their usage would not require reservation of space for an event usage.
Commercial law and 'public law' (the law that applies to members of the public not engaged in commercial enterprise) are different. Although public (servant) entities would like to commercialize everything, they cannot, legally (though they can if they can [illegally] force the people to accept [illegal] domination).
If Doyle pays his crew and plans to market the film result he would be commercial. If he doesn't pay and plans to show his film for free, whether on youtube or his home vcr, he, and crew, are in the same category as bird-watchers and wildlife spotters who photograph or film birds and animals, or trees, shrubs, flowers, etc.
I have no problem with permits as long as the the Parks have a "Shall Issue" rule so that you get a permit as long as you meet the minimum requirements.
then it would be free speech.
It would be distasteful, to most people, but that is why it's PROTECTED.
and are we really worried about a terrorist attack from Bigfoot?
it's a f*cking costume. you know, like the little kids wear to go house to house demanding candy.
just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not art.
Just because you're not laughing doesn't mean it's not funny.
-- Sig under construction...
ACLU has to get discouraged being stuck defending the rights of assholes like Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist screaming hate at gay soldiers' funerals. Fighting for Bigfoot going to be like a fun frolic in the woods for them.
Bigfeet are not yetis. Conflating the two just to shoe-horn the word 'abominable' into the text is lame.
If a lawful activity is having no impact on a public facility, the public facility has no standing against that lawful activity. That's how I read the Constitution anyway.
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
when no one shot him with a hunting rifle the first time.
Most state and national parks in PA charge exorbitant fees for those wanting to do photography and video shooting.
The way the rules are written, possession of photographic equipment of any kind on park property requires, depending on the park, between $35 and $200/hr fee to be paid.
And, they will ticket you if you are caught with a camera and don't have the permit. I received one such ticket at Peace Valley park outside Philadelphia when I took a picture of my wife and our dog with my cell phone. I paid $400 for a lawyer to fight the ticket, and was nonetheless found guilty of a summary offense and ordered to pay the $200 permit fee and $500 in court costs. The lawyer wanted another $5K to bring it to the Commonwealth Court, so I just paid the fines and moved out of PA. Fuck them. These little napoleons will do anything for money.
National and Public parks belong to the people. It is ours. Our tax money pays for them. We should not have to ask permission to use them.
Just wanted to point out that it's one of the most-hiked mountains in the WORLD. The mountain's name has actually become a geology term, and I've heard that it's only second to Mt. Fuji in number of hikers.
I would get annoyed if people regularly used the summit area to goof
off with video cameras or any other tech for that matter. Even talking on
a cell phone up there will net you many dirty looks. Mt. Monadnock is
one of the most frequently scaled mountains in the world, it can get
crowded up there. Were folks to make putting on little shows like this
on a regular basis it would get old real fast and spoil the natural beauty
of the area.
The licensing proposed wasn't punitive to the point where the average
person couldn't meet the burden. When I'm out there, it's to enjoy nature,
and not be the subject of every film student or bored hippee trying to score hits
on youtube or drum up publicity for their business.
The licensing is meant to curb the frequency of these events and
keep the state park focused on it's primary goals. It is *not* a
general use area, you can't even camp or start a fire on the
mountain.
Peter
www.alphalinux.org
Permits are necessary for many things. The purpose of the park system is to preserve land for the enjoyment of people, however different people would like to enjoy it in ways that are not compatible. That doesn't mean that all these activities can't be supported, it just means that they can't all happen at the same place and/or time. People who want to enjoy peace and quiet in the forest will be disturbed by people riding ATVs, or a huge film crew. People who want to swim in a lake and those who want to fish in it will have to do so in different parts of the lake. People who want to fish/hunt will ruin things for others if too many of them are allowed to do so (or not enough if there is a lack of natural predators).
The entire premise of the park system is to restrict what people do with the land. Sometimes this can be handled with static rules, other times the restrictions only need to be temporal in nature; you can take you big film crew out there, but need let the park service know when/where in advance to let people know to avoid that area. You can hold a big event, but only in areas that will not be damaged by the additional impact, and when no-one else is using the area. In both cases, the organizer either needs to agree in advance to pay all fines incurred by the group, or pay a nominal fee since more policing of the area will be necessary. In situations where there is history of abuse, requiring a refundable security-deposit or insurance bond might be entirely appropriate.
In this case, it does sound like the park administrators are abusing permits intended for large crews by applying it to individuals, but that doesn't mean that permits are never needed.
I thought you had to have a permit to film in public anyway, short of a home video of course.
While it appears NH doesn't require a permit to film, you do need to apply to film on state property. http://www.nh.gov/film/faq.htm
Looks like Bigfoot is in the wrong.
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