There’re thousands of photos and videos available on the Internet that you can download easily but it doesn’t mean you can use any of them in your projects legally. Actually, you cannot use any photo or video in your commercial projects until you have the proper copyright of that media.
The legal way to use a photo or video is by granting permission from the owner or by legally licensing the media from either the official website of the photographer or from platforms like Shutterstock etc.
But, if you’re seeking free photos and videos for commercial use, it’s also possible. There’re many websites available where you can legally download free photos and videos for commercial use. In this article, I’m going to share some of the top websites to download copyright-free photos and videos for your project.
1. Pixabay
Pixabay is one of the best websites for copyright-free photos and videos. It contains thousands of photos and videos which can be downloaded for absolutely free under the Pixabay License which means you can use all the stuff out there for commercial purposes even without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist.
It’s very easy to use Pixabay. You just need to visit the website and search for the type of media you want to download using the search bar. If you want to download free videos, just choose Videos from the menu and search with your query to find the relevant videos.
2. Pexels
Pexels is yet another big website to download free photos and videos for commercial purposes. All the photos and videos available on Pexels platform are licensed under the Pexels License which allows you to use them for commercial purposes.
Pexels has hundreds of thousands of free stock photos and videos which you can download by visiting the Pexels website. You can search through the search bar to find your desired media and then download it in just a few clicks.
3. Burst by Shopify
Burst is a free stock photos downloading website powered by Shopify. It contains thousands of free high-resolution images captured by its high community of photographers.
When you hover over or click on an image, you will see “High Resolution” and “Low Resolution” download options. “Low Res” images are great for small web graphics, where file sizes need to be very compressed. “High Res” images are better for presentations, websites, online stores, and anywhere else where quality matters most.
4. Unsplash
Unsplash is a community of 157,866 photographers where over one million high-resolution images are available to use absolutely free of cost. It contains only photos, not videos.
All photos published on Unsplash can be used for free. You can use them for commercial and noncommercial purposes. You do not need to ask permission from or provide credit to the photographer or Unsplash, although it is appreciated when possible.
5. Coverr
Coverr is one of the best and completely free online platforms to find videos on trending topics such as business, love, winter, car, etc. You can simply visit the website and search for the videos through the search bar.
All the videos available on Coverr.co can be downloaded absolutely free of charge. You can use them for commercial and noncommercial purposes. You don’t even need to provide any credit to the videographer or Coverr.co for downloading and using the videos from this website.
6. Videvo
Videvo is another great platform for downloading free stock videos without any hassle. Not only the videos, but this site also lets you download motion graphics, music tracks, and sound effects for free of cost.
Most content on Videvo is licensed under as Royalty-Free and our own Videvo Attribution License. You can use all the videos for commercial and noncommercial use, but in Royalty Free License, attribution is not required and in Videvo Attribution License, you must credit the owner.
7. StockSnap.io
StockSnap.io is a website to download completely free stock photos in high resolution for your commercial and noncommercial projects. You just need to visit the website and search for the type of image you want to download through the search bar.
Every single image available on StockSnap.io is under a Creative Commons License which means you can download images for free for any purpose and you don’t even need to attribute the image to the creator.
8. Canva Free Stock Photos
Canva is basically an online graphic design platform that also lets you download free stock photos for your projects. It contains millions of free stock photos that you can use in your designs.
Images on Canva are available in many licenses such as Free Media, One Design, Multi-Use, Extended, etc. All the images under the Free Media license can be used for commercial purposes free of charge and even the attribution is not required.
Final Words
There’re hundreds of platforms from which you can download videos and photos, but not all of them offer free stock media to download. The above-mentioned 8 websites allow you to download free photos and videos for commercial use.
I mostly use Pixabay for downloading trending video footage and photos for my commercial and noncommercial projects. However, the attribution isn’t required but I prefer to give credit to the owner of the photo or video I download, it really encourages them to keep doing the great work.
Along with Pixabay which allows you to download free stock photos and videos both, I sometimes use Coverr for downloading videos completely free of cost.
What’s your choice? Which of the above free stock photos and videos downloading websites you’re willing to browse for your next commercial project? Let me know your thoughts via comments.
It’s a great list of websites to download free photos and videos. I found this article informative and bookmarked to read again. Thanks for sharing.
You are doing great work. Thanks for these legal places for free media download.
It is a great collection of websites to download free stock photos and videos legally. Thank you.