Yeah, after getting the email I went through my uploads and cleaned up some keywords. I had a few tagged with Minecraft, eek!

It sounds like they are just getting a bit lazy/offsetting the work to the contributor. Before the Pond5 reviewers would check/deterimine if it was editorial, and mark it as such. Now they are making "you" do "their" job...

Same, the P5 workflow is horrible enough already but i just sent everything, keyworded with a sensible description and let the staff decide if its editorial or not.

Now its extra work deciding on a per clip basis, writing new descriptions and so on.

I wonder if this only applies to uploads after Dec 4, or will we need to go back and re-keyword older clips when things like "iphone" were permitted?

That could be a big task.  If they want all trademarked words removed from their database, they should do it automatically.  Probably wouldn't be too difficult to write a script that strips all trademarked words from everyone's keywords and descriptions.

According to what they wrote in the e-mail, it is just going forward/i.e., future clip submissions AFTER dec 4th...

I like the solution of first tagging the clips as editorial or commercial. Sharing and exchanging information, such as cataloging the clip, cannot be better than interaction between both parties. In fact, it has been a constant problem for me and I have constantly fought with microstock companies on this issue.

I am sure that at an editorial level, no one knows the context better than the person who capture the moment and understands whether any unknown rights or commitments may be violated from the contributor PoV. On other hand, the review is also easier for the curator in areas considered gray since he doesn't have to decide tagging the clip without full agreement from both parties.

There were many clips that I deleted due to commercial attribution to things that I specifically said  that could only be used for editorial and educational purposes in order to also respect my commitments with others.

I also agree with dragonblade regarding trademark terms in editorial. It does not make sense to me not having it. Imagine that you are making a documentary regarding the evolution of mobiles. In terms of educative and historical purpose trademark terms can help keeping record of time, different models, logo evolution of things in society culture. I think it will even value a little more the clip if such things are in keywords or description of the clip.