Raphael Pirker, a Swiss drone operator, was fined $10,000 by the FAA for operating a drone recklessly while filming a commercial for the University of Virginia. As reported by Politico, a federal judge has just ruled against the FAA. The decision says, "the policy notices the FAA issued as a basis for the ban weren’t enforceable because they hadn’t been written as part of a formal rulemaking process."

Small drones have a wide variety of valuable commercial applications - everything from monitoring crops, delivering small packages, and aerial videography. Filmmakers and others have increasingly ignored the FAA’s ban. The agency has pledged to propose a formal rule for small drones by 2015.

The FAA has yet to approve commercial use of unmanned aerial vehicles, yet some innovative companies such as Amazon are already planning to use them in creative and effective business models. CEO Jeff Bezos revealed yesterday that within a few years, they could safely offer Prime Air and deliver small packages in under 30 minutes.

We're excited to share Prime Air — something the team has been working on in our next generation R&D lab.

The goal of this new delivery system is to get packages into customers' hands in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles.

Putting Prime Air into commercial use will take some number of years as we advance the technology and wait for the necessary FAA rules and regulations.

Check out this footage from a recent test flight.