Comment by sneak
1 day ago
...which has nothing to do with NASA the US government organization, or the NSF (FYI). It's just some independent streamers who apparently know you can't get trademark claims against you by the federal government.
1 day ago
...which has nothing to do with NASA the US government organization, or the NSF (FYI). It's just some independent streamers who apparently know you can't get trademark claims against you by the federal government.
NASA allows them to place cameras as media on nasa property some are even permanent. and are credentialed media for launches. so I am guessing NASA is okay with it.
If you're referring to NSF streams from Starbase (Starship program), all of the cameras are installed on public land. There's no law prohibiting you setting up a Web cam (with autonomous power supply) in the middle of the forest, or on a riverbank, or on a dune 1400 feet from the OLM.
They started doing it when SpaceX was launching their first fuel tanks literally in the middle of nowhere, you can just sit on a side of the road a few hundred feet away and record (or even stream) everything from a basic Webcam. Eventually more and more people liked it and started contributing, then came branded T-Shirts, etc.
Now there's whole cottage industry in Boca with people spending weeks and months there, setting up and streaming from the cameras, they have trailers/control rooms, high quality equipment, daily and weekly updates, 24x7 streams, etc. NSF is a big player, Tim Dodd is another one, there's quite a few smaller players too.
NSF DOES seem to have some sort of agreement with SpaceX on streaming some of SpaceX's livestreams (ie when Ship goes out of visible range and SpaceX is the only place you can get video and of course telemetry). They didn't use to that until shortly after SpaceX streams moved to X (and immediately got replaced on YT by AI generated Elon peddling bitcoins).
Yeah, they have been covering space stuff for decades by now. They have literally dozens of remote cameras by now around Starbase and the Cape, funded by merch sales and community contributions. :)
NSF was started by Chris Bergen, a meteorologist by trade and a space exploration enthusiast, in early 2000s as a hobby forum (good old phBB) for people to chat about space and rocketry. I'm sure he couldn't even dream about becoming so popular so he didn't spend too much time coming up with a name (ie to protect himself against copyright infringement lawsuits). In fact I'm sure he would love to change the name now as they try to cover space programs all over the world (it's too late as people know them as NSF).
Trademark, not copyright.
The things real NASA produces are in the public domain and can be used for all purposes by anyone on earth, royalty-free, no copyright whatsoever.
I’m not sure about the NASA name itself, but apparently the graphic stuff is protected by a special law:
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-V/part-1221
So you wouldn’t exactly get a copyright claim when abusing the NASA logo but it’s still illegal.
I couldn’t find anything about the NASA word itself though, just some articles reciting guidelines by NASA not to imply an endorsement by NASA. I don’t know how that’s enforced though.
You cannot _misuse_ any official government logo or seal. Which effectively means creating a fake document with a real seal and then publishing it. The concern is fraud not sharing content.
You are allowed to basically reproduce the work without any worries whatsoever.
Spoken like someone who is generating their opinion from their channel name alone.
Those "independent streamers" provide live launch streams with multiple feeds using their own equipment and to top it off they have numerous very knowledgeable hosts for all their streams. At this point I suspect they are covering every US based launch from all the major players. Hell, today they broadcasted both the New Glenn and Starship launches less than 24h apart.
But yeah, let's get hung up on an organization name that originated as an Internet forum for discussing all things....... NASA!
Frankly, their coverage of New Glenn was quite a bit better than the official stream. :P
I didn't watch the official stream from Blue Origin (watched that one from my phone in bed so no multistreams that time lol) but it wouldn't surprise me one bit.
Sure, you'll get better telemetry info and the onboard views from the ships that these companies launch in their streams, but the commentary is sub-par at best (they are always sounding so "corporate official" to me) and they just don't provide the best views for watching it live.
I love that these space flight companies have opened up their development process to let the public follow along, I just think they aren't as good at producing live streams as some of these channels that have taken off over the last 5+ years.
They should rename themselves NSF, short for NSF Space Flight.
The National Science Foundation is also a division of the US government, and the National Sanitation Foundation (which goes by NSF) is also a well-known large and established private org.
NSF is taken, too.
I love that name and would 100% support that change lol