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A story picked up from Ars Technica:
While we’ve heard of consumer drones getting in the way of commercial airliners and obstructing firefighting operations, we've haven't heard of many cases where drones are shot out of the sky by a neighbor.
Eric Joe told Ars he was flying his homemade drone over his parents' orchard in Modesto, California late last year. After just three-and-a-half minutes of flight time, a single shotgun blast rang out from the neighbor's property at the low-flying, slow-moving hexacopter. The drone came crashing down instantly and was damaged beyond repair.
After the neighbor, Brett McBay, declined to cover the costs that he initially was amenable to pay, Joe took McBay to small claims court last month.
"Court finds that Mr. McBay acted unreasonably in having his son shoot the drone down regardless of whether it was over his property or not," the Stanislaus County Court Small Claims Division found.
According to Joe's attorney (and his cousin), Jesse Woo, if McBay doesn't pay within 30 days voluntarily—the end of June 2015—then they can go back to court to try to enforce the judgment.
"If he doesn't pay within 30 days we have to go through court processes to find out what kinds of assets he has and then to get a lien and get a judgement against his assets or wage garnishment," Woo said, adding that he fully intends to collect the money owed.
"We don't believe that the drone was over McBay's property—we maintain that it was briefly over the shared county access road. But even if it did, you're only privileged to use reasonable force in defense of property. Shooting a shotgun at this thing that isn't threatening your property isn't reasonable."
Original Submission
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @06:24PM
there exists no laws granting rights to trespass just because it's in the air
In fact the law states you do not own your airspace.
(Score: 4, Informative) by curunir_wolf on Monday June 29 2015, @06:33PM
there exists no laws granting rights to trespass just because it's in the air
In fact the law states you do not own your airspace.
Not true. You do own your airspace, up to a certain level. That varies from place to place (for instance, within a certain distance of an airport you own very little). But you do own a certain amount of airspace over your property.
It's sad that I had to point this out - you could have just checked The Book of Knowledge [wikipedia.org] before posting in ignorance.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by schad on Monday June 29 2015, @06:55PM
You own it up to 500 feet above the highest legitimate (not spiteful) point. Above that... it's unclear. It may be that you still own it, but air traffic gets an automatic easement. It may be that the government owns it. It may be that nobody owns it. It doesn't really matter; everyone agrees that the gubmint has control over it, so they own it in fact if not in law. You do have exclusive control in that 500-foot high box, though.