World Surfing League Says It Was Protecting Its Intellectual Property

A surfing event in Hawaii recently took an unusual approach to protecting its intellectual property when an unauthorized drone was spotted capturing images of the event.

Petapixel reports that the incident occurred at the World Surfing League big wave event at Jaws in Peahi, HI, and of course a video of the incident has been posted on YouTube.

Once the drone was sighted, several Safety Water Patrol staffers were dispatched to knock the drone out of the sky. They started by throwing objects such as swim fins at the aircraft, but were unable to knock it from the air. So they called in some big iron in the form of a helicopter.

The helo swooped in over the drone, and the rotorwash knocked the offending DJI Mavic into the Pacific ocean.

The person who tipped off Petapixel to the incident, Andrew Grose, said that the WSL "has been known to be quite protective in terms of its intellectual property rights. This is especially with regard to its copyright laws, making professional filming or photographing within contest areas almost impossible unless directly contracted by the WSL."

(Image from YouTube video)

FMI: Source report