Microsoft closes Soapbox for new users

Cory Bergman March 22nd, 2007

On the same day that NBCU and News Corp. announced a video deal that included MSN as a distribution partner, Microsoft’s user video site Soapbox stopped accepting new users to address the growing problem of pirated video appearing on the site. The move is temporary — up to two months — as Soapbox develops new approaches to filtering out copyrighted content. Microsoft said it wasn’t a condition of the NBCU-News Corp. deal, but the copyrighted video appearing on the site was clearly under scrutiny. It will be interesting to see what happens with YouTube in the next few months.