The history of short videos on social media is approaching the ten-year mark. From an inconspicuous trend, the genre has probably turned into the main mode of modern consumption of mostly entertainment and commercial, as well as educational content.

In the evolution of the short video, the role of a kind of pioneer was played by the notorious Snapchat service, which at the end of 2012 already allowed its users to share video files 10 seconds long in chats.

But for many, the first in the case was the Vine service, which was subsequently bought out by the owner of Twitter. As part of the service, Vine users could record six-second looped videos, quickly edit them in a cross-platform client, and post them to the social media feed.

Due to its simplicity, the concept quickly gained popularity and Vine literally broke into the top of the trends.

The format of the videos was quite diverse: from comedy sketches and music clips to informational and promotional content. Some videos have moved into the category of television advertising, so the commercial component was relevant even then.

Almost at the same time, Instagram added the option to share 15-second videos within its platform. Subsequently, many Vine stars moved to Instagram, because of this option and other bonuses.

Later, Instagram allowed merging up to 10 such videos within one story, and in August 2020 was launched Instagram Reels, according to reviews, a pleasant and functional service for processing all the same fifteen-second videos.

Videos loops’ trends on social networks and YouTube

If you are a blogger or a streamer and what to do when you need a video, but there is no way to shoot it yourself? What if the video is needed for YouTube, or for others, including commercial purposes? For example, to insert into a video on YouTube. In this case, you can use the video under a free license.

Of course, the best option is to shoot the video yourself. But, this is not always acceptable. So, are there any videos without copyright? How and where to get stock video footage for editing without violating copyright?

Copyright-free video content: where to get it from?

Where can bloggers get free video loops from? According to the law, copyright comes from the moment of creation. An author who uploads a video to the public space can put a free license on it. This person can change their mind and revoke the license by blocking the video.

The problem with video content is that it can be costly to create, not to mention it takes you all the time to get it right. This is where free video storage sites come in handy. Just like Envato Elements, Placeit, Artgrid, Videvo, VideoHive platforms with royalty-free video loops where you can download videos for free for your social media marketing campaigns.

It should be noted right away that different photo and video stocks offer different terms of license agreements. Here we present only the most common ones.

  • The Royalty-Free is the most common license that allows using of video files for free, without crediting the author.
  • The Videvo Attribution license is available for free, but credit for the original clip’s author is required.
  • The Creative Commons 3.0 Unported license allows using of the video for free, including its original, unedited file, with the name of the author is required.

Stock footage is suitable for creating simple video presentations and other purely illustrative content, which is most often required by small businesses or bloggers. But it is a different story when it comes to advertising for large businesses. In this case, everything is decisively the opposite: the use of stock footage is unacceptable.