"These systems ensure that the conservation of the environment, wildlife and cultural heritage within the parks are not compromised." NPWS

I'd be delighted to know how the taking of photographs that promote a national park and effectively encourage visitors could possibly compromise "the environment, wildlife and cultural heritage within the parks." Could the NPWS give some examples where this has occured?

Thanks for that point, 42South. However I think both you and I know that the New South Wales NPWS contention that “The National Parks and Wildlife Service administers a number of licensing systems to manage the use of parks for commercial purposes,” is in the case of “commercial photography”, just a smokescreen for gouging money from people.

I have at hand a 1999 letter noting that the NPWS considered an exorbitant charge of $3,000 for an Annual Photographic Licence. It was pointed out to an NPWS bureaucrat in this letter – from the Federal President of a national photographers’ organisation – that “(you) will create an environment in which editorial, personal or book photography (which I suggest you guys badly need to support!) will become financially impossible”.

Just how an NPWS official thought that small-scale photographers – many of whom would be part-time – could afford such a fee beggars belief.

Also, Woulfe makes the following contention in his post of Tuesday, 30 March 2010 10:20:53 PM: “I'm not a lawyer, but when you put your freedom of expression case to the UN Human Rights Committee, I can imagine that the Commonwealth Government's defence will include arguments that regulation of commercial filming and photography is a restriction required for the protection of public order”.

I’d like to thank him for giving me an enormous belly-laugh. The idea that small-scale photography done by people who are basically indistinguishable from tourists and have no more environmental impact than other tourists could be a threat to public order is plainly absurd.

Lastly, here is a cogent example of why these regulations are farcical. I recently visited The Rock Nature Reserve in southern New South Wales. My wife and I made the climb to the top and enjoyed our experience. If I wanted to, I could write an article about that climb for a leisure magazine and be paid – hence deriving a commercial benefit from that public land. However I don’t need a permit to do that or pay any fees. So why should my photography from that area be treated any differently?

Another point that NPWS (the organisation and the person posting here under that psuedonym) hasn't taken into account is that Flickr is, in reality, a commercial application of these photographs...and I don't mean just in the social networking sense.

Flickr is in a business partnership with the high-end photo agency Getty images and a multitude of mainstream publishers use Flickr to source pictures for publication. Many professionals post their work on Flickr (and Facebook) specifically so that the pictures will come to the attention of photo editors.

I doubt that any amateur photographer posting a picture of an Australian National Park on Flickr is going to refuse a fee for the use of that picture.

>> I’d like to thank him for giving me an enormous belly-laugh.

Glad I was able to do so. I'm sure I'll get a good chuckle in return when you take your case to the UN.

Go on, walk the walk.

>> I doubt that any amateur photographer posting
>> a picture of an Australian National Park on
>> Flickr is going to refuse a fee for the use of
>> that picture.

The creators of these Creative Commons-licenced images on flickr have already refused a fee: http://goo.gl/Cv2R

Woulfe, "The creators of these Creative Commons-licenced images on flickr have already refused a fee: http://goo.gl/Cv2R"

And your point is?

Enter the keywords "Australia national park" and Flickr turns up 102,087 photographs Take note of the work of Ilya Genkin and Darren Stones).

The Creative Commons licenced pictures you point to total 494 mostly mediocre photographs. If they are included in the keyword search, that still leaves 101,593 pictures of Australian National Parks within the commercial realm.

I make my point again; Flickr is a commercial operation owned by Yahoo and in a business partnership with Getty Images. Getty's reason for it's partnership with Flickr is that it gains access to a pool of over 2 billion pictures with the deliberate intent of making a profit. A picture uploaded to Flickr is part of a commercial operation whether it is sold or given away under a creative commons licence.