Even if you don't live in or shoot in NY this is so important - it's basically a handover of everything that falls between tourist photography and 7 figure indie films to the purely commercial sector. The outlawing of a huge swath of media art production, documentary, citizen journalism, and even many aspects of amateur and hobbyist photography and filmmaking - in the very city that is the American heart of street photography. It will also make it possible for the police to legally arrest people documenting protests, events, and police actions - the elimination of an important citizen check on power.
If this happens in NY, it will get worse everywhere else too. So please please please sign the petition whether or not you live in New York. Yesterday's Democracy Now had a segment on this with Jem Cohen and others that you can access from their site. There is a movement to legally limit noncommercial and small scale video and photographic work all over the country. It may be time to start a camera equivalent to Critical Mass. Brook Hinton _______________________________________________________ Brook Hinton film/video/audio art www.brookhinton.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
