Blackbox is taking over the Stock Footage Market. This is how.

If you already sell your footage online you may have noticed how Blackbox – a free digital platform that connects video creators and curators – has been a very hot subject in 2018.

Found PatMcGowan said the number of users grew 6 times in the last 2 weeks. It has already crossed the 15.000 users mark.

It is still in its early days and has a long path ahead, but has already proven its potential to dominate the Stock Footage market

What is BlackBox?

BlackBox takes care of tagging, keywording and editing (if needed), so you can put your focus on shooting new footage & earn more.

Blackbox, created by Pat McGowan, describes itself as a “Digital Guild” that helps film & video creators make steady passive revenue. And Stock Footage is just the starting point. They do that by connecting video creators with curators. That means we, creative people, can focus on what really matters to us – creating – while the platform and its users take care of the rest.

How to make money on BlackBox?

Before BlackBox, stock footage contributors had to take care of the whole process by themselves. It freed creators by connecting users with different skills so they can focus on their strengths and count on other contributors to help them on their weak side.

• If you’re the camera guy, you can upload your raw files to have other users edit, write metadata and submit your files.
• If you’re a video editor, you can get raw files from people around the world and do your work from home. You’ll get a share of revenue for each sale those files generate.
• If you’re just a copywriter, you can write metadata and submit other users’ files. You’ll get a share of revenue for each sale generated by those files.

Subscribing to BlackBox is totally free as the company makes its money out of the 15% commission rate over the net sales.

Though you might think this commission will make you lose money, the startup believes in the opposite. By creating content as a community, BlackBox files get better rates from the agencies and rank better in search results.

There’s still no solid proof it will generate better results than the traditional way. But some users on the facebook group are already reporting faster results. So I suggest you read our comparison article so you can take your own decision.

Which stock agencies will my files be submitted to?

At this moment, Blackbox community takes care of submitting its user’s files to 4 major stock footage agencies:

• Shutterstock
• Pond5
• Adobe Stock
• StoryBlocks

What kind of files can I upload through BlackBox?

At this moment, BlackBox only accepts video files. No photos/pictures are accepted yet, but they seem to be working on a Stock Music project.

Why is BlackBox taking over the stock footage world?

By uniting skills of different users and intermediate fair payments among them, BlackBox crushed what I judge to be the biggest obstacle to sell stock footage and stock photography: the time wasted to submit new stock footage files.

Photographers and videographers tend to hate the boring hours sitting down in their offices to write metadata to submit their files. After all, we’re creative people – we want to create more.

There’s also the belief that submitting files as a community while using the writing skills of experienced curators and collaborating to a unique profile at 4 major stock agencies (Shutterstock, Pond5, Adobe Stock, Storyblocks) will make sales increase and exceed the revenue the traditional way brings,

So if it saves time and, theoretically, pays better, it’s pretty understandable why stock filmmakers are moving to BlackBox in bulks.

And once the big obstacle is defeated, the gate opened for everyone, not only the experienced but thousands of new stock contributors. 

BlackBox still has a long path to follow but this we know: these are the early days of a platform that will soon revolutionize the way video creators make their incomes.