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Diamonds & the RIAA
eaglebtc writes "After reading the previously-posted article on cdfreaks.com about the rapid erosion of cheap CDR's, I found another equally scintillating write-up about the economics of music CDs written by Richard Menta, founder of MP3 Newswire. Sure, we've all heard the whining about how CDs are so expensive, but Mr. Menta takes a unique perspective on the issue by comparing the RIAA to DeBeers. He argues that both companies control distribution of products in their respective markets with an iron fist, and by so doing can artificially raise prices. Coincidentally, the bubble is beginning to burst in both markets: the RIAA is fighting against the uprisings of P2P software, and the diamond cartel's lawyers are losing sleep over the $5 diamonds produced in a lab."
If guys start wedding gals using cheap diamonds, then chicks will just find a new tool with which to implement Expensive Labor of Love strategy.
Also note that no DeBeers executives have set foot on American soil in several years -- there afraid they will be arrested for their monopolistic practices! So why don't we treat RIAA the same way? Oh, they're headquartered in the US and contribute a lot more to political campaigns...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
They are similar becuase of artificially created scarcity. We are moving into an age of plenty. We can already print real objects using a modofied inkjet. It shouldn't be too long (compared to the time between the printing press and the computer) until our computers can produce most anything we want from a pile of atoms.
The better question is, what becomes scarce? Knowledge? Art? Service technicians for replication devices? I've yet to hear a good answer. The elimination of scarcity throws our entire economic model out the window. What's the new model? Do we go Star Trek and only care about improving ourselves?
Try telling the girlfriend or the wife that though. They don't give a shit about corrupt, murderous, exploitative companies they just want that fucking iceberg on their finger so they can one-up their girl friends in the coffee house. It's a sad sad situation.
:) And if I told her all the @#$ that DeBeers does, she'd probably spread it like hot gossip.
Wait... you mean that you'd marry a girl like that?
Damn.
For the record, my wife doesn't even like diamonds.
Not sure if you noticed, but that article in The Atlantic was written in 1982. (At least, that's the copyright date on the article. The fact that it doesn't mention any events that occurred after 1981 is telling, as well.)
I don't know whether those $1.5 billion worth of diamonds are still sitting in Israeli banks, but I wouldn't bet on it.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
The fact is that De Beers is playing the sentimental trump. They are doing all they can to separate the "natural" diamonds from the "articifial" ones. They spent millions over the year to make every wife in every occudental country dream about a clear stone on her finger. They very wisely chose their sloga nas "a diamond last foreever" and are turning it around by saying the for a proof of forever love, you should give a gem that took forever to mature. Those people are very smart and very skilled at protecting their monopoly. Moreover, they are not over a bit of illegality and extortion if it can help them. They will hammer into our heads that the only good diamand are the "real" ones. Will it work? Time will tell... Anyway, diamond semiconductor might be a better outlet for thos artificial diamonds anyway...
Wowzers, if that subject line doesn't get me mod'd down, I don't know what will.
;)
So, the RIAA's issue is they haven't yet found a way to make money off of file sharing. If there was money in it, they'd be fostering it, not trying to kill it.
So, they're pursuing two directions right now. Fight tooth and nail to protect their current bread and butter (CD sales). They're not doing this for the artists... lord no, they're doing this for the labels. THe other direction they're going is trying to find new sources of revenue. NOTE: This new source must be as large if not larger than the existing stream (from a margin perspective).
Once they find a way to make money on filesharing, I bet two things happen. a) they stop harrassing folks and b) CD prices drop b/c they're no longer a one trick pony.
Sooooo... in an effort to stop the lawsuits and help get CD prices down, we, the buying public, need to find a way for the RIAA/labels to make billions off of online file sharing... hopefully without some terrible DRM integrated into the solution.
There have been many attempts... the $0.99 downloads are the most recent and most successful... but they're still not much compared to the brick and mortor sales that are occuring.
Put your heads together! Come up with a feasible way for the RIAA to migrate to a new business model and make all our lives easier.
I dare you.. find a hole in this logic
I'm down with that, as it were
They don't need it. They control more of the diamond market than OPEC does oil, but look what OPEC is able to do. To control a market, you need three things:
1. You are the largest player in the market, with a high total market share,
2. You have a large oversupply of the product,
3. You have the ability to crash prices by releasing your oversupply.
So what happens if someone mining diamonds were to challenge de Beers? de Beers would make sure that their network of retailers don't do business with that producer. They'd also release some of their capacity to temporarily drop prices. That would put that producer out of business.
The artificial boys are different, because they can make stuff cheaper even than de Beers can get it out if they dropped their prices as much as possible, probably.
What will probably happen is that lab-grown diamonds will still be very scarce. The people making them are being very secretive about their processes and even their identities. They could sell their diamonds for $6 or $6,000, what do you think they'll do?
That's true. Both have a vested interest in keeping prices high. What *should* happen is they should get a deal together where they divide the pie, with neither side stepping over it. Kind of like OPEC. If they did it in the US, it would be collusion, but they don't have to do that. We'll see.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
You're verging on incoherent, but you're looking for a place where there are women (*ahem* not girls) who don't like diamonds and/or who would reject a diamond because of its surrounding politics?
Try any of the following:
1) Local chapter of ACLU
2) Local Amnestry group
3) Local artist or arts school
4) Any town with a healthy population of liberals
It really says something about Slashdot that a moderater scored you as 'Insightful.' Such a sad, sad group of boys.
Oo! Oo! Or you could try explaining your position to your fiancee. I recall learning somewhere that women are people who are as intelligent as guys. Assuming you're an intelligent guy, one would hope your fiancee is at least as intelligent as you are, and would share your concerns over blood diamonds.
I'm a chemist, I know what they are, but "fake" is four letters and "synthetic" is 9. I give the average slashdotter credit for the intelligence to discern the difference, though perhaps that's overstating things.
On the day when 'authentic' diamond merchants are frantically shipping their stones with a crappy little scrap of paper with a hologram on it, like an Franklin Mint ripoff item, life will be better for common sense people.
They already laser-inscribe the more valuable ones with a serial number. The easy bit for the manufacturers of fake diamonds is going for the small-diamond market. As the article says, anything under 1/5 carat isn't worth verifying. And you can make a $10,000 diamond-encrusted bracelet with a bunch of diamonds that are, individually, not worth enough to check. And that will be a nightmare for de Beers to control.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat