Gymkhana USA This Weekend

See you there!

GT Channel Auto News

Our GTChannel Auto News has a new editor, Tyrone Rodriguez. He's churning out post after post. Check it out as it's 100 times better than when I was attempting to edit auto news.

Footsoldier

Here are my Bathing Apes. Love them. I bought them about a year and half ago at the Bathing Ape shop in Harajuku. I hear they are planning on opening a shop in LA soon. The cool thing about Bape is that even though they are a Japanese brand(made in China. But then again what isn't made in China), they have big sizes. Obviously they are targeting the international market. I have large feet considering I am Japanese. My Nikes are 12. But Nike makes their shoes smaller than other brands. These Bape sneaks are 11. I could probably go for 11.5.

Bravissimotoring!! Molto Bene!

We have released an Italian version of Best Motoring International in Italy now through our partners in Italy Eurosport Editoriale.
Now Keiichi's drift, testing in Tsukuba and the Touge Showdowns can be appreciated with espresso and panini.
Bravo!

Marc Cuban blog on Youtube Supoena

Marc Cuban Blog

Viacom Sues YouTube and Google

Right after my rant about Youtube, Viacom announced they are suing YouTube and Google for "massive intentional copyright infringement" of Viacom's entertainment properties. The suit was filed this morning in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and seeks more than $1 billion in damages.
Viacom sues YouTube and Google, claiming YouTube is making money off of unauthorized copyrighted content, such as Comedy Central's 'South Park.'

"YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent, Google," said a Viacom statement, issued in concert with the lawsuit.

Totally true. It's time we start sticking it hard to them. It's just wrong.
The part that really bugs me is that they have the capacity to police themselves better but they just aren't. Youtube has no intentions of blocking users from uploading pirated content.
We have filed complaints about Best Motoring several times. With their technology and man power how can they not restrict uploads with tags and titles that have the word "Best Motoring"?
Because if they do, no one will come watch the pirated content on their site. They are a business based on showing pirated content for free.
Their is no difference between Youtube and the guy selling pirated DVDs on the streets.

Visit to Mitsubishi Motors

We had a meeting with Mitsubishi Motors recently


That EVO that was in "the movie".


Hey what do you know a Mitsubishi "i" from Japan! It's one of the best selling kei car(light weight) cars in Japan.


The new Lancer.
The Evolution version(EVO X) is to be released sometime in spring 2008. I like the design of this new Lancer a lot. The style is a lot more sportier than the previous version. The old stock Lancer didn't have much to do with being sporty but I think this new model is.

Best Motoring on Youtube

Best Motoring is all over Youtube. This is a fact. There is no way we can completely avoid this and this is just part of what the internet is all about. But I am not afraid to say it loud and clear that what is happening is illegal.
I am writing this because recently we received one disturbing e-mail. It was from some guy complaining to us that we are demanding Youtube to take down our video clips. Which is true, once in a while we send a letter to Youtube claiming to take down pirated video clips. As a content rights holder we have that right and it is our duty to protect our interest. We have no right to be bitched at for doing this. But realistically there is simply no way for us to police this 100% and we just let most of it go. We need a full team to keep up with the clips that are being uploaded every day. That won't make sense.

Many people mistake us as being some huge conglomerate Japanese media company and none of these free clips on Youtube would actually dent our multibillion dollar revenue and we could go on our way without even flinching. That is a wrong perception.
First go on Youtube and search "best motoring". There are HUNDREDS of videos up. Secondly, we are not a multibillion dollar media company that has a tree that grows $. Thirdly some people think that the internet has nothing to do with decline of DVD sales. It's just an excuse. Hello everyone, why do you think CD sales have continued to slump since the introduction of file sharing on the net? Why are DVDs going down the same path? Because of the internet! Duh!
Many people don't know that Japanese media companies formed a consortium to ban their content on Youtube and request thousands of clips to be deleted.
Oh wait a second, Youtube is for the people and internet is free flow of content. So content holders should give out their stuff free because it belongs to the people that want it. Not.
You want to share everything with everybody and have everything for free? Try giving away all of your stuff for free.
As long as production companies make money selling their content, free flow of content hurts the producers, the actors, the hair dressers and even the prop guy. Because the rule of capitalism is that you gotta pay for good stuff. It has always been that way.
TV looks like it is fee. But it's not. Companies like Coke, Ford and Verizon all pay to have American Idol brought to you. They pay all the bills. On the other hand, Youtube delivers content, puts up ads and takes all the money for themselves. Somethin is wrong here.
If we got a penny for every Best Motoring clip they showed for free, I wouldn't be writing this now. We'd be on a beach sipping pina coladas and discussing which Veyron we should crash test in our next program.
Ok, there are some benefits of having our stuff up there to some extent. But now we have no control over what goes up. Guys are posting full length DVDs. And you want us not to claim this? It hurts us more than anyone because the core business of Best Motoring videos is selling DVDs. If Best Motoring was a TV show, the advertising sales would somewhat cover minimal costs but our first line of sales is selling DVDs.
It's the internet so should we just shut the f+ck up and stop bitching? No way Jose. I'm not going down like some encyclopedia company that couldn't keep up with the times!
Why should small/mid sized content producer continue to produce content when we can no longer monetize from our hard work? It's a bad spiral and I hope they really find a way to give incentives to the producers. Because right now their policy is content producers get free promotion and Youtube keeps the ad sales.
The reality is that you have to break the law to make it big in the internet and sell the company for 1.65 Billion? Just my 2 cents...

Rocking the Best Motoring Tee

Here's me wearing the BMI signature red t-shirt. We actually have a number of different designs available. This red one was one of the very first we made about 5 years ago. The shirts are available online at the BM Store on http://www.bestmotoringvideo.com.

Recently we signed a deal with Live Sockets which has them handle all of our DVD distribution and EC logistics. Basically we, Zigzag Asia/Best Motoring International wanted to concentrate on being producers and publishers of the content. It will be more efficient for us as a business to let Live Sockets take care of stocking, taking orders and shipping DVDs and we focus on making cutting edge car content on a regular basis. So this year we are scheduled to at least release 4 DVD quarterly and maybe even one bonus or special edition somewhere in between.
The new DVD coming up in April, American Touge 3 will all be distributed by Live Sockets. These guys have been a great distributor for us in the past and it was just a natural course of action.

But all things digital and on the net will be distributed directly by Zigzag Asia/Best Motoring International. Some very exciting announcements coming up soon on that front. We have some big players in that space taking our content for digital distribution...

Sing Shot Acquired by Electronic Arts

About a year ago I posted on this blog that my friend Ranah Edelin started up Sing Shot. Now they are acquired by Electronic Arts! Here is the news:
Forbes Article on Sing Shot and EA