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Video Assets Server

Guides

Guides to free stock video and licences

Every guide starts with a short answer, then explains the details: what a licence lets you do with a clip, how to credit it, what NASA and archive footage allow, how to fit footage to your format, and how to let an AI agent do the searching. They link straight into live searches of 23 video sites and into the curated collections, so you can go from question to footage in one click.

Looking for one word? See the glossary. For questions about Video Assets Server itself, see the FAQ.

Licensing

Whether a clip may go into a commercial video, what each licence asks of you, and when people or logos make footage editorial-only.

  • Free stock footage for commercial use: what the licences mean

    Free footage is safe for a commercial video when its licence allows commercial use and nothing in the frame needs a release. CC0 and public-domain clips need nothing; CC BY and NASA media need a credit line; CC BY-SA forces your whole video under the same licence; NC and ND licences rule it out. Separately, footage showing identifiable people, logos or insignia without releases is editorial-only: fine for news and documentary, not for ads.

    Explainer · 4 questions answered

  • How to credit CC BY video in your own videos

    Name the clip, its author, where it came from and its licence with a link, and say that you edited it, for example: “Ocean waves 04” by Jane Doe (Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:…), CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), trimmed and graded. Put it where viewers can find credits: the video description, the end credits, or a credits page you link to.

    How-to · 4 questions answered

  • NASA footage: what you can and can't do with it

    You can use most NASA footage in your videos, including commercial ones, without asking: NASA media is generally not copyrighted in the US. Credit NASA, don't use the NASA insignia or logotype, don't suggest NASA endorses you or your product, and get permission before identifiable astronauts or staff appear in an ad. Check the credit line: footage NASA distributes for a partner, such as a launch company, may be that partner's copyright.

    Explainer · 4 questions answered

  • Editorial vs commercial: model releases and logos in stock footage

    A licence covers the copyright in a clip, not the people, brands or property in it. When identifiable people appear without a signed model release, or logos, products and private property without a property release, the footage is editorial-only: fine for news, documentary, education and commentary, but not for advertising, promotion or anything that implies endorsement. Wide shots, nature, data visualisations and footage where nobody can be recognised avoid the problem.

    Explainer · 4 questions answered

  • Public-domain archive films (Prelinger) and how to use them

    The Internet Archive holds hundreds of thousands of films marked public domain or Creative Commons, including the Prelinger Archives: thousands of 20th-century industrial, educational and advertising films whose public-domain status is stated by the collection itself. Most other uploads carry a licence chosen by the uploader, which nobody checks, so verify them before relying on them. Either way, the people and brands in old footage never signed releases: use it for documentary and editorial work, and be careful in ads.

    Explainer · 4 questions answered

Production

Picking the right file, cropping for vertical platforms, and turning a shot list into a finished b-roll sequence.

  • Vertical video for Reels, TikTok and Shorts: find and crop footage

    Search with the orientation set to vertical (or add 'vertical' or '9:16' to the query) to get clips that are already 9:16 and fill a phone screen without losing anything. When only landscape footage fits, crop its centre: a 16:9 frame keeps about a third of its width, so start from 4K where you can. Deliver 1080×1920 and keep subjects and text away from the bottom and right edges, where platforms put their buttons and captions.

    How-to · 3 questions answered

  • Build a b-roll sequence from a shot list (OTIO, ffmpeg, Remotion)

    Write one line per shot ("city skyline at night (4s)"), pick the frame (16:9, 9:16 or 1:1), the frame rate and the total length, and let the sequence builder pick one commercial-safe clip per shot with alternatives. Then export: timeline.otio opens in DaVinci Resolve or Kdenlive, concat.sh renders the sequence with ffmpeg straight from the sources, remotion.json drives a Remotion composition, and ATTRIBUTION.md holds the credits.

    How-to · 4 questions answered

  • 4K, 1080p, codecs and containers: picking the right stock video file

    Download the smallest file that reaches your timeline's resolution: for a 1080p edit, a 1080p rendition, not the 4K master, unless you want room to crop, stabilise or reframe. Prefer MP4 (H.264) for easy editing; WebM (VP9) from Wikimedia Commons works in most editors or converts with one ffmpeg command. Match frame rates to your project, and keep clips shot at 50 or 60 fps for slow motion.

    Explainer · 3 questions answered

AI agents

How assistants and coding agents can search, vet and fetch footage for you.

  • Using an AI agent to find and license stock footage

    Add the MCP server https://video.shep.bot/mcp to your agent under the name 'video' (in Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http video https://video.shep.bot/mcp). The agent then gets search_videos, get_video, build_sequence and list_sources. Ask for footage the way you would brief an editor, including format and use ("three 4K ocean shots for a client ad"). It searches commercial-safe by default, reports every clip's licence verdict, flags editorial footage and gives you the credit lines.

    How-to · 3 questions answered

Ready to look? Search all 23 sites, browse the footage collections, or read how verdicts are decided.