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How to get iStockPhoto images for FREE

Posted by Dan L. on March 21st, 2013

I used to love the iStockphoto.com. If you needed a stock image you could look through their massive catalog, find just the right photo or illustration and then pay a few bucks to license it. I used to use istockphoto images all the time in my video contest entries (they make great green screen backgrounds) but last year I noticed they had jacked up their prices to ridiculous levels. Let me give you an example; say you’re working on a video for a contest about alternative energy sources and you need to include shot of a nuclear power plant. You check iStockPhoto and find the perfect shot; but oh man, look at those prices!

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The Extra-Small version is $19.00! I don’t want to sound like an old fogey but back in my day (2009) I could buy an image license on iStockPhoto for just a few bucks. $53 is a great price for a photo if your project is guaranteed make a profit. But what if you’re doing a job on spec or working on a video contest entry? Wouldn’t it be great if you could download a clean, watermark-free version of an IstockPhoto image to use in your spec projects? If you win or make a sale, you can just go back and pay the licensing fee. But if you don’t make any money then hey, no harm, no foul.

Well….there is a way to do that. Actually this trick works on images from any photo licensing site. First, find the image you want to use and right-click on it to download a copy. It will have a watermark on it but that doesn’t matter. Next, head to Google and click the Images option. You’ll notice that the search bar now has a little camera in it:

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Click on the camera. Two options will come up. Chose “Upload an Image.” When you’re prompted, upload the copy of the iStockPhoto you just ~~stole~~ downloaded from the site and hit the search button. Google will take the image and scan the entire freaking Internet looking for similar images. The results will look like this:

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Google will list every website that used the image you searched for. But the search isn’t 100% precise so it also includes copies of the photo that do not have the istockphoto watermark. So if someone, somewhere has paid the licensing fee and posted the image online, you can see it…and download a copy for yourself. (News sites seem to be the best source of stock images) This trick won’t work for every photo or illustration and you may not be able to find a High Quality version of the image you want. As you can see from those search results, I was able to find this 600 x 399px copy of the Nuclear Plant photo. An image of that size would look good but not great in an HD video.

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So it may not be perfect but at least it’s free. This trick may seem pretty handy but there is a problem with it; the process I just described is sort of AGAINST THE LAW. You’re violating an author’s copyrights and using their work to try and make money. That’s not only illegal, it’s sort of a dick move. If you put an iStockPhoto in one of your video contest entries and you lose, no one is going to come after you. But even if you don’t win, you are screwing the person who created that image a little bit. The guy who took that photo of the Nuclear Plant is a professional photographer and he went out of his way to stage and take this shot. He was totally ok with you using his work however you wanted as long as you kicked him a couple bucks for his effort. So try not to abuse this little trick, ok you cheap bastard? And if your project makes money, pay the damn licensing fee! In fact, if you want to err on the side of caution, just pay the fee upfront so you don’t have to worry about it. There are some video contest sites that (falsely) claim that you transfer all copyrights to your videos as soon as you submit them. That’s complete B.S. and not at all legal but those contest sites are going to want you to play by their rules. So if you submit a video that includes unlicensed elements you might wind up blowing your chance to make a sale.

And now an ironic disclaimer: Under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, an allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. So if you use an iStockPhoto in a video, that’s copyright infringement. But if I use iStockPhotos in an article about the site I’m protected by the first amendment.

Need to send a large video file? Try Dropbox!

Posted by Dan L. on August 8th, 2012

Fill my box!

Just a quick tip today: I have to send large video files over the web all the time and in the last five years I’ve tried pretty much every method you could imagine. There are a lot of file transfer sites that will let you send one small file, one time for free but those can get pretty frustrating. After years of trial and error I think I have finally found my go-to transfer system: Dropbox. You can put up to 2GB of files into your personal Dropbox and other people can then download those files. I even have a little icon in the top corner of my iMac so I can access my files at any time. Like I said, you can store up to 2GBs so this method is perfect for transferring video contest entries. Even in full HD, a 60 second video should be under 2GB. But the best thing about Dropbox is the price; it’s free. If you want to store more files you can pay to upgrade your account but I’ve just been sending my files and deleting them once they get picked up. So next time you win a contest and the sponsors ask for the original video file, head here and give dropbox a shot.

Filmmakers can now license music for their Mofilm and Tongal entries for FREE thanks to AudioSocket

Posted by Dan L. on April 11th, 2012

About a year ago, the CEO of Poptent was visiting Chicago and the company set up a dinner where he could meet some site members. I got to go and the CEO was a super nice guy. He went around and asked everybody what they thought about Poptent and he listened to everyone’s suggestions and ideas. My suggestion was that Poptent should team up with a website that licenses music for commercial use. I had been licensing music for my Poptent submissions from a site named PremiumBeat.com and having professional music really made my entries seem a lot slicker. I said maybe PremiumBeat would want to licensee tracks for free or at a discount if Poptent officially partnered up with them. The CEO seemed pretty interested in the idea and I think we even exchanged e-mails about it later.

But I guess I was just ahead of my time! Poptent never teamed up with a music site but yesterday I got a press release announcing a new partnership between Mofilm and the music licensing site AudioSocket. The details of the arrangement are extraordinary; Filmmakers can now license music for use in their Mofilm entries for free. When I first read about this I figured there might be 50 or 100 special tracks that AudioSocket set aside for Mofilm members. But naw….there are more than 33,000 songs available in AudioSocket’s Mofilm Music Storefront. All you have to do is pick your track and add it to your cart. But don’t let words like “storefront” and “checkout” fool you. When you go to check out, you don’t actually have to pay. To peruse AudioSocket’s Mofilm catalog, head here.

And guess what else I just learned….the video contest site Tongal ALSO has partnered up with AudioSocket! So filmmakers can also license music for free for their Tongal entries. Here’s some more info about that:

Tongal has partnered with Audiosocket, a boutique music licensing agency representing more than 1,400 emerging bands, composers and record labels. Audiosocket tracks will be available to Tongal members at no charge solely for their incorporation into Tongal members’ submissions to the Nespresso project. Tongal members are encouraged to browse the Audiosocket catalog, available at http://audiosocket.com. If you are interested in using a track from the Audiosocket catalog, as described above, please email for account and password info, which will allow for the download of up to three tracks.

I think these partnerships are a HUGE deal. Every contest site should be doing something like this. When you shoot a video on spec or for a contest you feel the sting of every dollar you spend because there’s a very good chance that you’re not going to make that money back. Every time I license a track from PremiumBeat it costs me $30. And that 30 bucks can be a factor in whether or not I actually shoot an entry for a video contest/assignment. I usually try and keep my budgets around $150 so if licensing music is going to push a project over that number, I might just scrap the idea. If filmmakers can gamble less money on their contest entries, they’ll probably wind up shooting more of them. So in the long run, a partnership with a licensing company is going to pay off for site like Mofilm and Tongal in the long run.

How to get unlimited, real youtube views

Posted by Dan L. on October 27th, 2011

Youtube: Where all your viral dreams come true

Every once and a while I will come across a “viral” video contest where the winner is determined by youtube views. And when I do see a contest like that it takes a lot of will power for me NOT to enter. You see, in my time running this website I have learned a lot of shady tricks; and “how to get to get tons of fake youtube views” is one of those tricks. Basically if you go to the right website you can order all the views you want. But those “views” are just fake, junk views. They’re just generated by some guy in India using a computer that is constantly changing its IP address. (or something like that) They don’t come from real people. So in most “viral” contests, buying fake views would be considered cheating. If you buy fake views, there is a chance you could get caught because fake views leave evidence behind. And not only could you get disqualified from the contest you’re in, you could be kicked off of youtube for violating the site’s Terms of Service.

So like I said, I try not to enter “viral” video contests. But about two months ago I came across a contest that was being run by a new micro-jobs website that I just had to enter. The competition was being run in two stages. In the first stage, people were supposed to create funny videos about giraffes (The website’s mascot is a giraffe) and then try to get as many youtube views as they could in four weeks. The people who created the Top 5, most viewed submissions got to go on to round two where they would compete for $15,000. I decided to enter but I promised myself I would NOT buy fake youtube views. () I figured that with the resources I have at my disposal I could get into the Top 5, fair and square. This website just keeps getting more and more traffic so I stuck a banner ad for my own video at the top of this page. And man, did that get me a lot of views! Plus, I have a kind of popular youtube channel with a few thousand subscribers. So I was able to get a good chunk of views from there too.

But inevitably, as the view count deadline approached, the cheating began. Several other contestants started buying fake views and I was pushed out of the Top 5. I contacted the contest organizers and I explained how you could tell when someone’s view count was phony. But they said they really couldn’t do anything about it because the practice wasn’t actually against the rules. (So technically, it wasn’t even cheating!) So basically I recived the OK from the contest organizers to do whatever I could to get in the Top 5. But I still didn’t want to take the easy way out. So I started looking for a legitimate solution to my problem.

And I found that solution in like five minutes. It turns out that any youtube user can now sign up for the site’s “” program. Basically you can now buy views from youtube! Except unlike the other views you can buy, these are REAL views that come from REAL people. If you use youtube’s promotions program to get 10,000 views, it means that 10,000 different people actually watched your video. So while some might consider this bending the rules of a viral video contest, no one could claim that you’re breaking the rules since your views are coming from real people and since you’re not violating youtube’s terms of service.

Here’s how the program works: After you sign up you pick which video you want to promote. Then you tell youtube how much you are willing to pay per view. I think I went with 12 cents but you can go even lower. And remember, that is the most you are willing to pay per view. You then get to select the keywords you want associated with your video. So if your video has a giraffe in it (like mine did) you can select “giraffe” as a keyword. Then when someone searches for giraffe videos on youtube, your video will appear in the “Promoted Videos” sidebar. The more specialized a keyword is, the more you will pay per-click. Here’s a a screengrab of my Promoted Videos Dashboard that shows the keywords I used for my giraffe video:

Note: I cut out the irrelevant parts of this chart in photoshop

So even though I “bid” 12 cents per view, most of my views only cost me 2 or 3 cents. And as you can see, the keyword “funny” was the most popular keyword by a long shot.

After you set your keywords, you tell youtube how much you want to spend every day promoting your videos. If you say “$5.00″ youtube will run your video as an ad all day until you have spent $5.00. I think the best thing about this program is how fast the process is. If you want a huge number of views right away, you can tell youtube you want to spend $200 a day. Youtube will pimp your video like crazy and by end of the day, you’ll have thousands of real views. Here’s what your “dashboard” will look like once your “campaign” is up and running:

Again, this was photo-shopped to save space

The final view count for my giraffe entry was about 16,000. And that was enough to get me into the finals. As you can see, I recived 10,659 views thanks to youtube’s promoted video program. And that means I was able to get 6,000 views on my own. And that’s pretty damn good! If the other contestants hadn’t bought fake views, I would have been able to get in the Top 5 without any help from youtube.

So youtube’s Promoted Videos program is pretty much just a giant, view-creating machine. However many views you want, you can get. And you only get charged when someone actually clicks on your video. But there is one major drawback to this program; this s&%# ain’t cheap. I spent about $300 to get those 10,000 views. So was it a wise purchase? Well, the results of the contest I was will be officially announced on November 1st so check back here on Monday to see how I did.

UPDATE: The sponsored decided to split the prize 3-ways so I won $5,000. That means my investment paid off big time. But one of the other winners just happened to be the biggest cheater in the view-count round. So it was awesome to win $5,000 but I’m annoyed that a cheater got a slice of the grand prize.

Australia is confusing

Posted by Dan L. on October 6th, 2009

Ok, I am confused. I am confused by Australia; both the country and the continent. Today I saw the results of the “Learn, Live and Grow; Study in Australia video contest.” The point of the contest was to explain why it’s awesome to study abroad in Australia. Here’s the winning video:

First Place. Prize: A trip to Australia

For the most part it’s a funny entry and really covers all the bases that were required by the contest. So why am I in such a kerfuffle? Because First Prize in this contest is a trip to Australia….and the dude who won SHOT THAT ENTRY WHILE IN AUSTRALIA.

From the winning student’s mini-bio that’s up on the contest site, it looks like he’s already returned home to Canada. But still, doesn’t it seem weird that the guy was apparently just in Australia a few weeks ago and now he’s already got a free trip back? Couldn’t they have maybe given the prize to someone who wasn’t already in Australia while the contest was going on?? Oh well. Some Canadians have all the luck I guess.

Wait a second…this guy didn’t win a “trip” to Australia. He won 2 round-trip plane tickets to Australia. Man, that kinda sucks. They couldn’t spring for a couple nights in a hotel? On the plus side, at least I’m not jealous of that guy anymore.