RSSMicrosoft Shutters Soapbox to New Users
By Ed Oswald | Published March 23, 2007, 10:59 AM
Attempting to stave off a similar situation to that of YouTube, Microsoft said this week it would not accept new registrations for as long as two months while it works on a better system to protect copyright.
The move is in response to an increasing number of illicit videos appearing on the service. While current users will be able to continue to access Soapbox, the site would not accept any new registrations.
Microsoft on Thursday had announced a deal with NBC/Universal and Fox/NewsCorp to stream television shows and movies through Soapbox. As it continues to strengthen Soapbox's offerings, it is likely getting pressure from copyright owners not to repeat YouTube's mistakes.
Viacom has already sued the popular social video site, and it has had its run-ins with several other content owners. Microsoft could have faced similar suits from its partners if, when the companies' content libraries come online, illicit content appears alongside the authorized ones.
It is not immediately clear if Soapbox will be the site used to distribute the content, but Thursday's move seemed to indicate that it might play a large part in the overall strategy to take on YouTube.
Along with the Microsoft, NBC, and Fox, the partnership would also include Yahoo and AOL.
"Today's announcement is a great win for MSN's more than 460 million consumers and for online video more broadly. When launched, this new venture will provide free access to an unprecedented library of high-quality video content," Microsoft Platform and Services president Kevin Johnson said of the deal.
Good Luck Microsoft. You are late to the game (as usual) and any restrictions you place will be a hindrance to it's growth potential.
Let's say I have a home video that is hilarious, but has a song in the background that is copyrighted. Microsoft might detect that as a copyright violation, and not allow it. There are 50+ services that will allow it, however, and people will just go there.
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There are 50+ services that will allow it, however, and people will just go there.
...and those 50+ services will have to deal with lawsuit after lawsuit.
MS has enough of those already. :p
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The genie is out of the bottle. It has become easy, almost trivial to violate so-called intellectual property laws as understood by the media conglomerates, even when it's in ways that don't cause them financial harm.
There is no way Google or Microsoft or anyone can constantly police these kinds of sites for infringing content.
We have reached a point where our laws are so out of touch with reality that we are creating more and more technology that can't legally be used, or is hampered to uselessness with overly complex protections like DRM, which like gun laws, only stop the people who are not likely to break the laws in the first place.
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