Rejection rate his gone up - the probable reason why.

HI all, I think I'm going to stop wasting time adding any more audio tracks to Pond5, as the curation process seems to have become a total lottery.
I'm suspecting that they now have an automated algorithm process to reject a random selection of uploads, so as to save server memory and / or save on time and staff for curating.
Even though the rejection email has a curator's pseudonym/number, I have a feeling that it is just being added automatically at the end of the standard rejection email.
When you think about, it they would have to hire a lot of people (who have music supervision skills) and spend so much time curating the thousands of audio, video and after effects uploads that they must be getting daily.
So it makes sense that they now have plenty enough stuff to make a fat profit and so are not so needy of any new stock.
Of course, they would never admit this because if it became publicly known that the curation is indeed a lottery, they would eventually stop getting any new submissions at all!
But I would like to make it clear that I'm not complaining, I understand the thinking (if true) and in their position, I would probably do the same :)
What makes me pretty sure of the above, is that in the last few months, tracks that were rejected have been doing very well on other stock music sites. I also have over twenty years success creating audio for media productions and DO KNOW what works, so it is with some surprise that nearly all my uploads now get rejected.
Over the years, I have been making some good extra pocket money from Pond5, but I have recently started getting about a 95% rejection rate, so why waste time uploading any more?

hi.

if indeed it is all automated, then i don't think that will stop people from submitting. on the contrary, if i knew for sure that it's automated and no one is actually listening the items, then i would be able to send practically anything, and maybe multiple uploads of the same item, since eventually everything is submit will be accepted (given enought time and re-re-reuploading the same rejected stuff again and again). if i have 100 items and 95 are rejected, i will be able to send the next 95 again and then the next 91 etc til they all get approved, being automated..

aside from this, some of your doubts have come into my mind as well, but most of my stuff was added last year, when rejection rate was really practically 0%. this year i only uploaded some in the beginning of the year and i found that on music i didnt have any rejects, but on sound effects i had about maybe 50-75% rejects.

i started few days ago with some new sfx again, had 2 reviews so far, first batch had 67% rejects, second batch 0%. what will happen next, i dont know, but id like it if reject rate stays low.

if you can afford not uploading, then yeah, it might be unpleasant and maybe you could stop (if you dont depend on those money). but if you depend on pond5, then low rejection rate could prove to be better than not uploading at all.

Hey guys,

Mike, head of Music and SFX at Pond5 here; lots of misinformation is spread in the forums, so I wanted to take a moment to squash this rumor.

I'm reassuring our contributors that we have two real life human beings with trained musical ears listening to and curating your tracks: Dani and Miklos, who many of you know. They're both accomplished musicians and music lovers who understand what Pond5's buyers are looking for as well as gaps in our collection.

Yes, our rejection rates have gone up as our library grows. We're committed to providing a music catalog with depth and breadth -- we're never going to be a boutique agency -- but the ability for a buyer to find what they need quickly and efficiently without being overwhelmed is key. We're approaching 500,000 music tracks and that’s an enormous amount of content.

This is not to discourage you from submitting, as we're always looking for superlative production music, but as a contributor it's easy to forget about the buyer's experience. You just can't scroll through hundreds of music or sound effects in a couple minutes like you can with photo thumbnails.

Many composers have been doing this a long time and have a firm grasp on the landscape. However, because a track has sold well on another site doesn't guarantee it will sell similarly here. This is to say, our curators make tough, informed decisions based on a variety of factors to determine if a track is accepted or rejected.

I hope this clears up any confusion and we look forward to listening to your submissions!

Hi Mike, I totally understand your dilemma on accepting / rejecting music tracks, especially given the quantity you already have. However I did research Miklos's musical background and I see nothing related to musical supervision for film or even anything to do with music at all.
And also given that it would necessarily take at the minimum, 1-2 minutes to listen to each submission, I can't see how only two curators would find the time to curate the hundreds of daily submissions you must be getting. So I do continue with the feeling that at best, the curating process is semi-automated, perhaps via the keywords?
For example if you have an excess of electronic / dance / club music, any submissions with those keywords would have less chance and would quite likely be automatically pre-flagged for rejection. But if you have a shortage of ethnic / folk / jazz / Latin, maybe it would be pre-flagged as "needed" and your creators would take the time?
Perhaps in the future, you should try curating the composers themselves, before allowing them to sign up? Many quality production music libraries work this way.
Anyway, thanks for your comments and it does show that Pond5 cares about their contributors :)

I've always thought and this includes the Pre Pond 5 takeover that a musical curation consists of 5 sec beginning,5 sec middle,5sec at the end.
This is purely my opinion.

I'll take Mike's word for it that each track is listened to by a human. The concern is that when P5 reaches the millionth audio upload mark, not only will more tracks get rejected, it will be much harder to sell music because of saturation. There's probably no way around this. Something will have to change in order to keep the talent around. The current model can't sustain itself and retain quality content providers. It will eventually implode, the talent will get tired of high rejection rates and low sells. 500,000 music tracks and the natives are already getting restless. OK, not to be so grim, if the buyer's market keeps up with the growth of P5, then it won't be so bad. I doubt that is going to happen though.

I know this is some time after this post was created but I posted one song that I believe is unique. I had already been advised to sell it on pond 5 so I thought I would give it a go. Then it was rejected therefore I have a suggestion. Why not allow people music to be uploaded to their artists page even if pond 5 doesn't like it, as a lot of buyers buy because of that person. Prime example look at the youtubers videos, people subscribe even when the content is bad because its what we know. We know the person and not just what they do.
Allow all uploads to go to artists page even if Pond 5 don't like them thats all l am asking. I am going to do a vote on youtube today to see how many of my subscribers like the song that was rejected.
Remember opinions vary across the universe, we have to accept what we do and don't like but people need to see what they do and don't like before they can make a choice.