National Trust Headache (Again).

Pond5 appears to have introduced a blanket ban on video footage of National Trust properties and other British heritage sites. I sell stock drone videos and many of these have been rejected recently due to apparently landing on the 'prohibited list'. I find it quite unacceptable that Pond5 are pandering to national landowners such as the National Trust who have absolutely no right whatsoever to deny photographers the right to sell video footage depicting properties of significant national importance. So long as the footage is shot from public property, or via drone (private property does not include air space), then why are Pond5 restricting this freedom? This goes against many British principles, such as freedom of the press, so unless other issues are present (Right to privacy/GDPR etc), why are we no longer able to sell video footage which has been captured completely within the framework of the Law? I thought Pond5 were better than this!

email Pond5 Support and inquire about the apparent ban.

A national landowner that has powerful lawyers against you, pond5 will always back down as its a toss up between your videos maybe being sold or maybe being not, out of the millions of videos on here against a multi million pound business, there will be only one winner, I am not saying its right but in the crazy world of copyright, Leicester council has copyrighted Leicester and Leicestershire, and a well known luxury goods brand has copyrighted the name of a mountain, so my mountain images have been removed

I did email support and they just said they would pass my comments on to the content team. The problem with the likes of the National Trust is that they have no legal right to ban commercial photography but they just try it on. I can’t think of a single occasion whereby the NT has taken a photographer/videographer to court. This is because they would lose and end up looking stupid. There is clear case law in the UK when it comes to aerial photography and this has been the case for decades. I think the most annoying thing is that the NT have a monopoly on our heritage. It belongs to all of us and they have no right to claim it for themselves.

I do agree i fly drones myself and they do not own the airspace, taking from outside their land and making images should not be a problem, the most issues I have are with churches that will happily accept a £20 donation into their coffers but will demand my images of the church interiors are removed, I live just east of London, their is a blanket ban in the borough of Barking and Dagenham on drones, they set a byelaw, and epping forest has a ban on drones and even images its a funny old world, but to be honest stock images and video is finished, I have been receiving the following commission for image sales the last 5 are

Goodison Park Stadium 7/1/2024 12:13 AM $2.45
Seven Pound A Pint Pub 5/1/2024 12:13 AM $0.46
Air China Airbus A330-343 3/31/2024 12:09 AM $2.71
The Punch Bowl Pub York 2/2/2024 12:16 AM $0.55
St Patrick's Cathedral Manhattan New York 1/6/2024 12:08 AM $6.38


when my commision should be many multiples under their global sales pricing..... no way to opt out so i can travel almost 2 hours across London, with 2k of stills equipment and i receive $2.71 for i guess a chinese purchaser, and china has a faster growing economy than britain, the pub in york is an excusive image on this site and i received 55 cents, it makes offering up video and images not worthwhile that total for all five doesn't cover my tube fare

If you want to upload videos or pictures to Chinese material websites for sale, I can help you. There are many websites in China that sell videos and pictures, and the demand is very high. I currently live in Beijing, China.