Microsoft's Soapbox shuts out new members

MICROSOFT IS GOING out of its way to make sure that the best part about online video streaming, piracy, won't touch its video-sharing site Soapbox.

The website will be shut off to new users for a couple of months or so to ensure that sneaky TV-episode-hoarding Web hermits will be unable to entertain the rest of us geeks with internet telly.

New subscribers will not be accepted, but those who have signed up already will still be able to muck about on the Poor Man's Youtube.

Microsoft, now joining up with other web giants AOL and Yahoo to form an online media superpower, has created a filtering system using digital-fingerprinting technology from Audible Magic to ensure that no copyrighted material will find its way onto its website.

Adam Sohn, director in Microsoft's online services group has said that the Vole wasn't forced into the move by its new partners, though content providers were certainly keen on seeing how the company will manage to filter out all of the copyrighted material. µ