Why Do People Pay for Public Domain Footage? Destockd and the Convenience Problem in the Public Domain.

On September 5, 2026, the YouTuber Elroddd posted the video “I Killed A Business Model,” which revealed his new website Destockd — a public domain archive video website. Despite Elroddd having fewer than 30,000 subscribers, the video has been viewed over 3.8 million times with over 117,000 likes as of this writing. “The response to the video has been unbelievable,” said Elroddd in a personal interview. “I expected this video to get about 10k, not 3 million. I’ve been saying to friends I’ve been stun-locked since it started blowing up.” His secret project that he finally showcased online is a stock footage archive of more than 41,000 public domain shots. Anyone can access and reuse this collection without paying a licensing fee. Destockd attempts to address one of the central difficulties associated with public-domain footage: the difficulty of finding relevant clips without turning to a paid stock-footage service.

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