Soapbox Temporarily Closed

I said a word or two about Soapbox when it went live (publicly) a little over a month ago. And it was kind of good. Not the best of the video hosts. But good. Then a rant about EULAs by John Foster on This Week In Media caught my ear some twelve days after Soapbox’s official launch and had me rethink my feelings about site. My new take had nothing to do with the façade Microsoft laid over the content database, but everything to do with the things anyone would be required to accept to become a member of the site.

Well, now Microsoft is currently padlocking Soapbox some more – so much so that it has shut out new users for “up to two months so it can create better safeguards against pirated content.” To sum it up, Soapbox will be no more.

Actually, that’s not exactly accurate. It’ll open up again. But it’ll be even less appealing than its inspiration (YouTube) than it is now. And that’s where that “no more” bit enters the room.

Hey, few on the Web like piracy. The number of people who fail to care about not paying for something that should be paid for is small, very small. Most stray to the “bad side” because they want to stick it to The Man. $15-20 for a CD? Sorry, no. $9.99 to download a DRM-laden album decreased to 128kb quality audio from the definition of the original recording? We’ll pass, thanks.

There are many reasons why piracy and illicit copying and editing of content are rampant today. But it’s hard to see the logic in going to great lengths to prevent copyright violations in a venue like Soapbox, which is also open to legitimate copyright-free recordings. Because where is the line draw between yes and no? What if an individual captures a daily video blog of his/hers via a web cam and copyrighted content just so happens to be playing in the background? The same for audio tracks. Are all of those “Numa Numa” videos violations in the original copyright owner’s eyes?

We seem to be trending toward a universal requirement for anyone and everyone to retain all knowledge of copyright law and adhere to “The Book” lest they end up a criminal facing fines and/or jail time. If only we sat back and played by their rules. Everything would be fine. We can enjoy all the media we may want and/or could afford as long as we pay what they ask and never deviate from the rules. Want to share a tune with your friends? They’ll each have to pay for their own copies, and listen to their own copies, and if a passerby overhears and loiters around to catch the chorus, you’re screwed. Or is it that they're screwed? Sorry, I only skimmed through The Book.

What Microsoft (and lots and lots of other establishments) does not realize is the age-old “clamp down” never holds. No dam is ever lock-tight. Things manage to get through, and even if “the baddies” fail to do so, they’ll go somewhere where they can do their own thing.

As anarchist as this may sound, if rules were not broken, knowingly or unknowingly, we would not be where we are today. SNL would still be heading downhill. The iPod would not be around. “Numa Numa” would remain unknown to just about everyone. The Autobahn would have speed limits from start to finish. The TiVo wouldn’t exist. And on and on.

These things exist because people make exceptions, and typically if they themselves benefit from those exceptions. The problem we have with content owners today is that they do not realize they can benefit from making the exception with YouTube, and in the same vein, Soapbox.

So Microsoft shouldn’t be kowtowing to the copyright kings and implementing copyright sensors, which are almost guaranteed to be faulty on launch day #2. They should spend their money fighting for those exceptions. Doing so now will help them save a lot of energy in the future.

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