Recently, I posted about where to find completely free, public domain videos available on the web, that you can use for commercial or educational purposes. I want to expand the list in this post to include sites where you can find royalty-free videos, film and stock footage to watch, share or to incorporate into your projects.
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The difference between this and the previous list is that these are not in the public domain. There is a clear copyright holder and you must acquire rights to use the videos. In some cases (such as the stock footage sites) the content is not free. Acquiring a license to use the footage might involve paying a one-time fee vs. an ongoing royalty (hence, royalty-free). The good thing is that royalty-free footage is expressly designed for commercial use, so once you purchase the appropriate license you can use the film or video footage without worry.
In most cases though, the videos on the sites listed here are free to stream or watch. Nearly all of the sites feature community ratings of video content. Some sites (not the ones listed under Government and Public Interest) have videos that feature ads. If you click on the ads the filmmaker or video producer will earn a few cents for each click. In other cases, film and video producers earn money from the number of impressions (page views) their videos receive. On that note, you can also think of many of these websites as places to share video, film or stock footage that you already have, and potentially earn some cash in the process!
Some of the video sites, like YouTube, even let you embed the video on your website. There are programs out there that will let you turn streaming content into downloadable video which you can watch on your computer, burn or whatever. (I'll probably post in the future about those.) The main thing is to make sure you have read the fine print carefully and respect the rights of the creator or copyright holder. Now, with the disclaimer out of the way, here is a pretty broad list of sites where you can find quality video and film on the web, broken down by category.
Royalty-free stock footage:
Ecofootage.com -
Thousands of royalty-free video stock footage clips on environmental sustainability.
iStockVideo -
A division of iStockphoto. Footage includes film, video and digital computer animation. Difference pricing models available -- pay as you go, subsription, and corporate accounts. Footage includes film, video and digital computer animation. Difference pricing models available -- pay as you go, subsription, and corporate accounts.
Pond5.com -
Another royalty-free stock video footage site.
Shutterstock footage -
Clips start from $10 each and can be downloaded in many formats including DVCam, BetaCam, and HDCam.
Film and Video Shorts, Independents, Animation:
Atom Films -
Comedy videos, film shorts and animation. If you want to find a laugh online, this is the place to go.
Blip.tv -
A new class of entertainment is emerging that is being made by the people without the support of billion-dollar multinationals. Our mission is to support these people by taking care of all the problems a budding videoblogger, podcaster or Internet
Break.com -
Attract quality films from budding filmmakers. Films are short-form, about 10 minutes.
Metacafe -
Independent online video community specializing in short form (90 second) video clips created by new talent and established industry professionals.
Motion.tv -
Get linked to the work of animators, video and motion picture graphic artists.
Turn Here -
We're setting the standard in creating professional-quality short format Internet video (typically 1-4 minutes) that is unscripted, authentic and compelling. - local film
Social Networking:
BuzzShed -
Social networking around science and technology videos.
Flixya -
Social networking and video combined. Also designed as a way for people with videos to make money.
Joost -
Social networking around video watching online.
Revver -
Sticks ads onto user video clips, and then pays the user a share of the clicks. They also deliver video to cell phones via Verizon.
YouTube -
The big dog of online video sharing. More than a third of all online video watching happens on this site.
Yuwie -
Another social networking/get paid to post video site.
Instructional and article directories branching out to include videos:
AssociatedContent -
Article and video directory. You can find information on almost anything here.
eHow -
Another how to site. Has a video channel.
ExpoTV -
Video product reviews.
Hungryflix -
Site designed to deliver video to mobile phones, pdas, ipods, etc. You can find video of all kinds--feature films and shorts, music videos, documentaries, television, sports and how-to videos.
Intructables -
A how-to site featuring mostly articles with images, and some videos.
Government, Education, Culture and Public Interest:
Capitol Hearings (a service of C-SPAN) -
You can go catch videos of U.S. Congressional hearings broadscast on CSPAN and covered in the news.
C-Span Video Library -
C-Span's broadcast archive.
Grapeflix -
Documentaries and educational video on-demand service.
Library of Congress webcasts -
You can find films on biography, history, performing arts, education, government, literature, religion, science and technology. A very cool resource. The featured video the last time I visited was an hour-long performance by Stevie Wonder of his (20-years in the making) pop-classical concerto, "Sketches of a Life," celebrating his winning the second Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Not something you find everyday--unless of course you visit the site!
NatureMedia -
Nature videos hosted by this international weekly journal of science.
Hope you find this a useful list of where to go when videos are wanted and a kickstart to your online video hunting journey. Of course, if there are great sites you know of that are not on the list, feel free to share them in the comments below.
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