How to Download Shutterstock Videos Without Watermark

Shutterstock is one of the most popular providers of stock image, video, and audio content. It’s often a go-to spot for many content creators that need additional stock content. On Shutterstock, all available content is paid. You can browse, screenshot, even download images and videos from the website, but they’ll all feature a watermark.

Here’s how to download Shutterstock videos without a watermark.

The Legal Way

The clearest and most straightforward way of gaining access to Shutterstock content without the watermark is paying for the subscription. This may seem fairly obvious and redundant but it’s worth emphasizing that this is the only legally sound way of gaining access to any watermark-free Shutterstock video content.

There’s a reason why this is the case. This is how every single person who posts on Shutterstock gets paid. In order to use somebody else’s video that took time and effort to make, you need to pay for their provided services. If you want to download a Shutterstock video without a watermark and remain within the confines of the law, subscribing to the service is the only way to go.

Other Ways

There are ways to download images from Shutterstock for free, though. However, they’re absolutely illegal. By resorting to means that allow you to download Shutterstock images, you’re risking lawsuits further down the line. All it takes is for your particular content (that you’ve used a Shutterstock image for) to become famous enough to find its way to the artist, and you’re looking at a legal action that will set you back quite an amount and likely ruin your reputation.

On the other hand, if the artist in question doesn’t choose to pursue you legally, or never finds out about the unlawful misuse of their content, and if this is a risk that you’re willing to take, you can find a way to remove the watermark from a Shutterstock video.

Using Online Tools

There are countless online tools that specialize in watermark removal for videos. As outlined above, using these tools makes you eligible for a lawsuit by the content creator. But, if you still want to use them, they can, effectively, remove a watermark. The trouble here, in addition to doing something of both questionable legality and morality, is that there are countless tools available online.

Some simply won’t perform a good job and will leave a watermark. Others will remove the watermark completely and ask you to pay/subscribe in order to use your watermark-free video. Instead of using bad watermark removers or paying for the good ones, you could just subscribe to Shutterstock, instead.

Removing It Yourself

If you’re an expert video editor, you can effectively remove the watermark in question in a few hours. This, however, takes a lot of expertise and much more if you’re an intermediate editor. If you don’t know a lot or anything about video editing, you’re best off not getting into this. Well, unless you were going to get into video editing anyway.

There are a bunch of factors to take into consideration here. Using opacity, the blend mode, greyscale, divide, and various other tools are necessary here. Furthermore, the whole process will set you back quite an amount of time. If time means money for you, you’re much better off paying up for a Shutterstock subscription to get your hands on the video without a watermark than doing it yourself.

Having Someone Else Remove It

If you aren’t experienced in video editing, there are a lot of experts available out there that are. If you know someone who’s a fantastic video editor and this is a one-off thing, you can ask them to do you a solid and remove the watermark for free. Chances are, however, that you don’t know a seasoned video editor who knows how to remove a watermark from a video and who’d take their time to do it.

An alternative is going to websites such as Upwork and looking for an editor who’ll do this for you. Of course, this won’t come for free. Additionally, not every editor will be comfortable accepting this deal. Finally, you’ll have to pay up; likely more than you would pay for your Shutterstock subscription.

Shutterstock Subscriptions

Hopefully, by now you’ve realized that the only good way to go with watermark removal is to subscribe to Shutterstock. Other ways do exist but, even if you pull it off, you risk legal consequences. So, we recommend that you stick with Shutterstock subscriptions for watermark removal purposes.

Luckily, there are many payment plans that Shutterstock offers. The most popular is a 5 HD clip subscription that allows you access to 5 HD clips on Shutterstock that you can download, watch, and use without watermark. There is a cheaper offer for 5 SD clips and a more expensive one, offering five 4K clips.

You can also get a 10-pack and a 25-pack subscription, with SD, HD, and 4K clips in each group.

Of course, you can buy individual videos, too, which is great if this is a one-off thing, where you’re certain that you won’t need any other Shutterstock videos. Bear in mind that not all videos come in all three SD, HD, and 4K options.

Removing Shutterstock Watermark from Videos

There are ways that will help you remove the watermark from your Shutterstock videos, but you’re going to have to capture the actual screen and find a way to remove the watermark, which will diminish the footage quality and potentially result in a visible watermark. Getting a subscription or paying for a single video is the best way to go here.

Have you ever bought a video off of Shutterstock? What subscription do you prefer? Did you try removing the watermark in an alternative way and failed? Hit the comments section below with your experiences, tips, and questions.