Microsoft quarantines own video site

Microsoft is closing its video-sharing site, Soapbox, to new users for up to two months so it can create better safeguards against unauthorised content.

The software giant, which agreed earlier on Thursday to distribute movies and TV shows for big media companies, has seen Soapbox fill up with unauthorised clips since a test version of the site launched last month.

No new subscribers will be accepted but anyone who has already signed up for Soapbox can continue to access the site, said Adam Sohn, a director in Microsoft's online-services group.

Microsoft stood to be embarrassed by the existence of pirated work on Soapbox. There was a real possibility that the company could have found itself distributing video from News Corp. and NBC Universal, at the same time another one of its units was hosting material stolen from those same companies.

Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo! have agreed to be part of a new online joint venture of media conglomerates that also includes NBC Universal and News Corp.

Sohn said the changes were not forced on Microsoft by its new partners, although he acknowledged that some of the content providers were very interested in how his company planned to clean up Soapbox.

Greg Sandoval writes for CNET News.com