VideoBlocks launches partnership with Discovery Channel

Crystal clear shots of volcanos erupting; intimate footage of African tribes; aerial video of famous skylines. This is Discovery Channel content, and now it can be yours.
Reston, Va.-based VideoBlocks announced on Tuesday that it is partnering with the Discovery Channel to make over 30,000 clips from Discovery’s library available for download in the VideoBlocks Marketplace. The most recent additions will be live starting in early 2016.
VideoBlocks, a subscription-based stock video service, was founded with the goal of providing budget-conscious content for video editors. “We launched VideoBlocks with the goal of providing premium creative content that everybody could afford,” company founder and CEO Joel Holland told Technical.ly.
Years ago Holland, himself a video editor, saw a future in which a growing number of both professionals and enthusiasts would want to create high-quality content on a tight budget (think of all the quality made-for-YouTube content that exists today!). He founded VideoBlocks to serve this market.
Officially launched in 2009, VideoBlocks began collecting an extensive library of stock video — a feature the company calls the Unlimited Library. Today the service provides 115,000 clips (either shot, commissioned or bought by VideoBlocks) that subscribers have unfettered access to all for $79 per month.
This past April the company decided to expand its model, and launch a Marketplace. A big motivating factor for this launch seems to have been the goal of keeping users on the VideoBlocks site. “Sometimes [users] need very specific things that we don’t have in our library, and they have to go to Shutterstock and Getty and buy those things,” Holland told Technical.ly.
So VideoBlocks decided to get in competition with Shutterstock and Getty. Their competitive advantage? VideoBlocks allows content creators to keep 100 percent of the profits of any video clips they sell on the Marketplace. “It really took off,” Holland said.
Today over 800,000 clips have been submitted by 8,000 contributors who, collectively, have been paid almost $1 million through Marketplace sales. Marketplace videos are priced at a flat rate — $49 for HD clips and $199 for 4K clips.
The VideoBlocks team hopes that the Discovery Channel content will take their Marketplace to the next level. “We think that this Discovery partnership is the first of many others like it to come,” VideoBlocks head of content acquisition and contributor engagement Greta Pittard told Technical.ly. “The collection is just very very vast — and beautifully shot.”
Have a sneak peek for yourself: