Like royalty-free music, we also have royalty-free video clips. Pay once for the licence and use many times over. Sometimes it’s cheaper to buy a footage, rather than go shoot the footage yourself.
Pond5 is my favourite because it’s affordable, and also I have my own clips being sold there. Imagine a silent 10-second close-up clip of a cellist in action selling at $47.
I have even made a complete corporate video just using stock footage (many years ago). the only media that the client gave was two photographs, a picture of their directors, and their factory front gate.
Legal Warning: Remember to read and understand each site’s license agreement, to be sure of usage limits, if any.
Here’s the list of royalty-free stock footage sites.
Royalty-free Stock Videos
- Pond5
- iStock
- Shutter Stock
- Artbeats
- VideoBlocks
- Getty Images
- ClipCanvas
- FotoSearch
- VideoHive
- Footage.net
- Dreamstime
- Dissolve
Then there is really free, zero-dollar stock footage sites.
Really Free Stock Videos
- Mazwai – A high-quality collection
of free creative commons HD video clips & footages under CC 3.0 Attributio n License. - Pexels – Offers completely free videos licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. This means you can edit or change the videos and use them free for personal and even for commercial projects.
- Vimeo Group Free HD Stock Footage – A group created by Phil Fried, giving away clips for free use in your video production.
- Stock Footage for Free – Completely free stock footage and stock video from around the world. The footage can be downloaded instantly and incorporated into any type of project – personal or commercial.
- YouTube Editor Creative Commons Videos – The quality of videos here are not of high quality, but you might find some rare shots not seen elsewhere.
What is Royalty-free?
- Royalty-free refers to the right to use copyright material or intellectual property without the need to pay royalties or license fees for each use or per volume sold, or some time period of use or sales.
What is Creative Commons?
- Creative Commons allows you to legally use “some rights reserved” music, movies, images, and other content — all for free.
What is Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license?
- Creative Commons Zero (CC0) is the “no copyright reserved” option in the Creative Commons toolkit – it effectively means relinquishing all copyright and similar rights that the creator holds in a work and dedicating those rights to the public domain.
Do you use stock footage?
Have I left out any site?
I would love to hear from you.
Adrian Lee
VIDEOLANE.COM
PS: More sites to be added to the list… visit this page again… http://www.videolane.com/stock-footage-sites/
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