Watermarks on audio files?

Sorry to be a whiny pot, but I couldn't help noticing that none of my items appear to have watermarks anymore. Initially, I thought it was just my items affected, but I went back and sampled items from a random search of music tracks (multiple artists, etc.) and none of them appear to have watermarks. Is this a change in policy?

Just to follow up: I've received assurances from P5 that downloads of music items for evaluation purposes still contain watermarks. I'll stop freaking now.

B~)

Stop freaking? And in vain, because now someone can steal any music! How? Just write it down to your computer in real time, because now there is no watermark. If you don't have P.R.O. and Content Id your music can be stolen without any consequences. P5 didn’t tell you why they did it?

This is freaking horrendous! Audible watermark, no matter how annoying is the single only thing keeping bad people from stealing our tracks. Warpath: ON

They are inaudible when you listen to them on web page preview, but after downloading a preview you get a file with watermark. So getting a file without watermark needs recording it from your computer audio output. I think that this solution is good - especially for short SFX with previews often covered by watermark

They just changed 3/4 of my catalogue to free tracks. Great. Good To Know

I asked the support about it. This is the reply:

"Hello David,

Thanks for contacting us with your inquiry!

To continually improve the Pond5 customer experience, we've decided to remove our watermark from the quick preview function for Music tracks and Sound Effects.

Please note, that this is only the case for the lowest bitrate quick preview file, and the audio watermark remains on all downloadable previews. We've received feedback from our customers around how the watermark is obtrusive to their browsing experience, may hinder their ability to access the audio track, and even deter them from licensing content from us.

Furthermore, several prominent competitors have also removed such watermarks. These efforts have become the new market standard practice from a customer experience perspective.

There was a time when audio watermarks were necessary to help deter fraud. With advances in digital rights tracking technologies (including Content ID), there are new ways to detect unauthorized usage and curb fraudulent use of our Artists' content.

To advance these efforts, we are currently evaluating the integration of enhanced anti-fraud technologies to help protect our Artists while generating new additional monetization opportunities.

We appreciate you being a Contributor with us, and if you need any further assistance, please let us know. We're always happy to help."

Not sure who they are talking about when they say, "Several prominent competitors have also removed such watermarks. These efforts have become the new market standard practice from a customer experience perspective". I don't see this as a good idea at all. I feel that they should continue to protect the work we upload here. So because a few customers complained they removed the watermark? I think protecting our work should come before a few complaints justify a change to the protection of our files.

While yes I know the preview is of lower quality I feel it should still be watermarked, so that those who know how to record the preview and do not really care if they get the best quality file can't just get a non watermarked version regardless of its lower quality. It can still be of use to some who will now just use as is. So I agree with some others here this is not a good thing. They also never told us about any of these changes. I had to find out on my own just by chance.

So if a prominent bank says you know! some customers were having trouble with there lock boxes so we have decided to remove all the locks to make it a better customer experience. Should that mean all other banks should follow what this bank did, I would hope not due to lack of security, but these days it seems the norm, and everyone follows everyone else.

What is missing above all is a form filled in by the client providing the possible cue sheet or the youtube link or other of the use and that this document as well as the client's information be shared on the composer's account.

Thanks to this innovation, Tiktok users can now directly upload your music from the P5 to their videos on TikTok. I don't know what to think about this. Is this good or bad for composers?))