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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 that doesn't work, I predict that your fiance will be expecting a new 'Mars rock' ring, and NASA will finally be able to finance that trip to the moon they've been faking^W talking about.
Wow! The guy must be a genius to see the similarity between the two!!
Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me
The latest Metallica wrapped in a box of of lab fabricated diamonds. Total cost? $100 Having your headbanging girlfriend love you forever? Priceless
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.
...are 'too' perfect, and still (sort-of) detectable when looking at earth-mined stones..
De Beers has been trying to 'educate' the diamond masses about these 'heretic' stones, but eventually, this will bankrupt them
Now, as for the RIAA, CD-Rs and file-sharing won't kill the music industry. I wouldn't even expect a drop in sale-price, just more and more bureaucratic nonsense.
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
I knew I should have waited two more years before getting engaged!
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
However, unlike the RIAA, DeBeers never promised that the prices of their diamonds would come down when market forces and economies of scale entered. Remember when CD's first became available? I can remember saving my change so I could afford some of the first CD's that came onto the market at what.....$15-20? Did the price on those ever come down? No.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Dogbert: So you're telling me that if I give you thousands of dollars, you'll give me a pebble you found on the ground?
Store Owner: These are not just ordinary rocks! They're precious and virtually priceless diamonds!
Dogbert: That's only because you chose to restrict the supply.
Store Owner: Ok Ok you figured us out. I'll give you a bag of diamonds if you'll keep quiet.
(Dogbert walking away with a bag of diamonds)
Dogbert: Well now I'm a party to this dirty little secret...
the problem i've had with riaa for a while now is the discrepency between cost and sell. if a cd costs several times less to produce than a cassette, why does a recorded cd cost up to twice as much. perceived value. incidentally i used to be the IT manager for a jewelry wholesaler and it opperates much the same way there.....and they are getting boned over these lab diamonds
!(^((ri)|(mp))aa$)
DeBeers dosn't have a total monopoly on diamonds now, and there is no reason that any democratic government would give them total control.
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?
Maybe in 10 years or so the processes will be widespread enough to kill the market.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
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
The $5 synthetics are "industrial quality" diamonds and are used in manufacturing tools and products, not for being inset in jewelry. DeBeers is in the jewelry business and until the $5 synthetics can meet the same level of visual quality and appeal of a natural diamond, they aren't sweating it.
The real reason why DeBeers is sweating is the $1.5 billion worth of diamonds sitting in Israel which, if released into the market, could send diamond prices spiralling down.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Even if Debeers can bring this innovation down and integrate it into their monopoly, they cannot keep their empire forever.
With the benefits that diamonds can bring to the tech sector, there will be a large demand for cheap diamonds with the right molecular properties. In other words, demand will bring about many more synthetic diamonds and Debeers can't stop them all.
Green Monkey san
Among non-living things, the best carbon based object is considered to be diamond. Among living things (which are mostly carbon based) women are considered best. (It seems that's the reason women like diamonds so much.)
Artificial diamonds are here. When are artificial women coming up?
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
About a year ago as I recall
Antoher reason I am glad I have ducked the marriage bullet to this point.
(honestly it wasnt that hard, I am a geek after all)
Cheers
Wax on, wax off baby!
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?
DeBeers has something to worry about because there is nothing illegal about making artificial diamonds. (In fact, it's far less morally reprehensible than the virtual slavery of people in Africa caused by the bloodshed and civil wars that occur over diamonds and other gemstones.)
On the other hand, while music sharing causes a significant problem for the RIAA, they can still do something about it. The issue of the RIAA's price fixing will never be resolved until some method is devised and implemented successfully to bring independently-produced music to the fore.
Diamonds are a rotten analogy because it suggests that, up to now and the magic golden age of P2P, the publishing industry posessed all of the real music. The only thing that really distinguishes their product is that it is so obvious. If you never want to buy a major label release again but want new music all the time it really is not hard at all to do. It just involves a little more work.
There are two ways in which the internet may create a revolution for independent musicians. One is by offering a viable replacement for radio. The second is by exposing music to the distributed filtering techniques of mass exposure and moderation that the internet essentially gave rise to the invention of. File sharing as such strikes me as something that will be much of an adjunct to the real 21st century revolution of music - assuming it really happens because it sure hasn't yet.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Did you know that there is a 2% surcharge on all CD recorders sold that goes directly to the RIAA, and a 2% hidden tax associated with the AHRA that is collected by the RIAA to give to artists, yet only roughly 36% of that 2% goes to the artist. www.boycott-riaa.com
You aren't paying attention. Previous artificial diamonds are too small for gems, they are used as abrasives in drill bits and so on.
These new companies are not making diamond dust, they are making gem size diamonds, and plan to use the income from that, as they destroy deBeers, to finance making diamonds for semiconductors, as in huge wafers.
Maybe you could come up with some definition for "industrial" diamonds, whatever that is, and then update it for the new artificial diamonds, and realize it has no more meaning.
Infuriate left and right
[...] both companies control distribution of products in their respective markets with an iron fist [...]
I'd say that this comparison is a bit inaccurate. DeBeers can reduce the number of diamonds offered on the market - supply drops, demand raises the price of the good. Simple. Raising the price and keeping the amount of goods offered at the same level will lead you nowhere, because customers will wait for the prices to drop since they know that a surplus of goods will build up over time (which decreases the price).
Now, does the RIAA really reduce the number of CD in the stores? Because only this would compare to the influence DeBeers has on the market... No, they just raise the price. And guess what - customers buy less CD and turn to P2P.
P2P music sharing distributes a good (mp3) that is nearly equal to the original good (CD). While the $5 diamond may be equal in the quality compared to a 'real' (= DeBeers) diamond, the price is part of the value of the 'real' diamond. Give a $10 ring to a woman, and she'll like it. Give the exactly same ring for $1000 to a woman, and she'll feel appreciated. Diamonds are a girls best friend, after all.
My cats ate my karma. They also wrote this comment.
We have two seemingly seperate industries. Both, like mentioned in this post, rule their respective markets absolutely. The RIAA controls the price of CDs and DeBeers controls diamond prices. Both of them have been having to put up with some competition.
/. population seems more concerned with the RIAA placing fake copies of Christina Aguilera songs on KaZaa.
Gemology, a florida based company, is making synthetic diamonds for very little money that are near flawless. A 3-karat stone runs about $100 US. There is also a Boston based company that hasn't begun selling yet, but claim to have perfected a process that makes better diamonds than Gemology at a lower price. Meanwhile, dozens of P2P and blank media companies are developing new ways to "compete" with the iron-fist of the RIAA.
Everyone flames on the RIAA because of their lame tactics that are more annoying than effective at eliminating file-swapping and burning. But what about DaBeers that has been instigating international crime and inflating prrices on diamonds for decades? Near constantly we see stories of little children being tortured over diamonds in Africa yet the
I am not trying to sound preachy. In fact, I don't really care about kids in Africa. Or anywhere for that matter. All that matters to me is being able to download whatever I want, whenever I want. And write longwinded posts on Slashdot with a good premice that go absolutely nowhere.
The only place I could find work as a writer is at Fox News. Sure, I can't make a point but I am "fair and balanced" TM.
The New Root Council, kickin' ass sinc
Congress is told by the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) that file trading is theft. In reality the P2P services bring balance to a system long unfairly tilted to favor the supplier.
In reality, file trading is *still* theft because you're breaching the artist's copyright. He's comparing apples and oranges...music is a personally created work of art which is copyrightable. Diamonds are a naturally occuring deposit that just happen to be horded by one relatively nasty company. While I agree the two bare striking resemblances in their distribution models (read: iron fisted), that's where it ends.
The hullabaloo over file sharing is that, since music can be digitized, it can be easily replicated. We all realize by now that the reason P2P is succeeding is because it came up with a more convenient, but less secure, form of distribution. The RIAA's argument is that because music can be duplicated, they will lose the group of customers who would noramlly all individually buy an item but who instead buy one and dupe. A parallel would be DeBeers, had they created the Hope Diamond, getting pissed because someone was able to replicate it and sell it for $5 on the street.
That's not the case, this company is creating new diamonds (parallel: independant artists) that will use the same distribution model (retail sale, more than likely) as DeBeers. The only person who should be getting pissed in all cases is the owner of the original work, which for music is the copyright holder, with diamonds it's God (or, for you scientists, Mr. Pressure). I don't think God (or pressure, for that matter) cares.
It still infuriates both DeBeers and the RIAA, so I understand the comparison, but please don't argue that new, cheap diamonds are the same as P2P. One's legal, one's not (in most cases).
--trb
"You should spend about a month's salary on the next Britney Spears album."
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
So, lets say you have to buy a ring*, but you don't want to give DeBeers money. I suggest you buy Moissanite ring. Myself, when faced with that decision, I bought a Tanzanite ring because my honey likes Tanzanite, and I hate DeBeers.
;)
True, Diamonds won't be expensive for long, and Moissanite is cheaper now, and may eventually cost more than diamond. But, Moissanite is harder than Ruby, and has a greater luster than diamond, and it also costs about 1/10 of what diamond does today.
* One day, you will find a nice little woman who wants a ring, and generally it is best to get her one!
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
CDs aren't forever, but the force of copyright means that if you cut a Big Hit(tm), you and your heirs can have a recurring revenue stream for a long time, along with all the fat, balding, over-40 WASPs who are the bulk of the middlemen pushing your work. So RIAA wants to hawk as many "legit" jewels as they can without someone undercutting them. That you can buy some DRM'd songs and can't transfer them to a new system. Hard to find anyone against the concept of playing a "used" MP3 on their system, right?
I haven't read all the comments yet, so this may be a dupe, but the author of the article is not comparing apples to apples.
True, both the member companies of RIAA and DeBeers are cartels, but what one controls through rarity (diamonds) the other controls through absolute control (music).
The author points to the fact that RIAA companies have pumped out 20% fewer new albums, and then somehow tries to parallel this to the same stratedy as DeBeers. Doesn't work I'm afraid. A diamond is a diamond, and having control over how many are on the market allows you control over price (assuming demand stays the same). The same is not true for music CDs...one album is not the same as another.
If (for example) the latest U2 album had been put out with only 100,000 copies made available, then the price could be pushed up on those CDs much higher as demand would not be met by that number. However, the price is completely uncorrelated to how many other albums are available.
A better correlation between DeBeers and RIAA would have been to focus on the loss of control each industry is facing. Diamonds will soon be cranked out at $5 per karat, and garage bands can now reach a global audience without RIAA interaction. The RIAA isn't playing nice in its death throwes, and I shudder to think what DeBeers will do in theirs.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
Here's a great article written by Steve Albini on problems with the music industry...very revealing.
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
PS: Steve Albini for those that don't know was in many bands very influential to the Nirvana/Pearl Jam type bands of the day. Bands like Big Black and Shellac...then he turned to producing bands like Nirvana and Bush and others...
Eventually, these processes may become cheaper than manufacturing glass.
Read "The Diamond Age".
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
Since diamonds can be produced cheaply according to the previous article. I want a cd made of a solid piece of diamond. Then I'll never have to worry about scratches again. And if I wanted, I could sharpen the edge and flex my l33t ninja skillz!
Because this is about the RIAA, and it brings out the worst in me, I couldn't help but bring your attention in this analogy of the diamond trade and the music trade - the "Blood Diamond." Does the RIAA have blood on its hands ... (of course this is meant only in the sense of extending the analogy ... so RIAA please don't try to sue me ... ha ha.)
Blood Diamonds
http://www.amnestyusa.org/amnestynow/diamonds.html
Greg Campbell is the author of the forthcoming Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World?s Most Precious Stones (Westview Press), to be released in September 2002.
Illicit diamonds make fabulous profits for terrorists and corporations alike. The trade illustrates with the hard clarity of the gem itself that no matter where human rights violations occur, the world ignores them at its peril.
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
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
The RIAA's "xxx's is killing music" (substitute cassettes, P2P, MP3, whatever comes next) is somewhat undermined by all of this.
Menta makes the point that CDs are priced by the big five at the point that maximises profit. No surprise then to hear that whilst UK CD sales were up by 3%, profit was down by 2%.
Two words:
Price War.
The general's not a fool. He won't sell at $5/carat. He'll pitch them at 10 - 50% cheaper than DeBeers. Cheaper diamonds, but not *ridiculously* cheap diamonds. Just cheap enough to get the cost-concious buyer to think "Yeah, it's artificial, but it's still a flawless diamond, and it's 25% cheaper than that other, identical stone...".
DeBeers will either have to reduce prices, or deal with the General. There's a good chance things could get nasty. If the general and his process survive, the consumer will benefit.
Does your Cartel seem destined to fail in future markets. It's time you learned how to succeed. The Very Successful Drug Cartels will be having a convention this fall. Don't let your Cartel go the way of the Railroad Express!
... Extortion
... Bribery
... Price Fixing
... Secret Pricing
... Lobbying
... Obtaining cheap 3rd World Labor
... Becoming a government monopoly
... Murder, Mayhem and Intimidation
... Finding the trouble makers
... Going Multi-National
... End Competition for Good!
Choose any of these great topics...
and for the truly abitious
Sign up now for priority seating. Check our some of our current well known registered participants.
Music - RIAA
Video - MPAA
Diamonds - DeBeers
Oil - OPEC
Don't start a Cartel without checking out this conference. Only one Cartel per Industry please.
I posted this article, Have you ever tried to sell a diamond in the previous discussion on diamonds. It is a thourough history on the DeBeers cartel and how they created the myth that "A diamond is forever". It should be required reading for any young man about to be duped into blowing a big wad on a "cheap" rock.
...because copyrights are forever!
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics
You, sir, look like the man who would emjoy the benefits of the new Stepford 9000! She's more customizable than the 7000 or 8000 series - all aspects of appearance can be modified to a wide variety of configurations. From tall and buxum to short and muscular and everything in between! With new patented No-Sass circuitry she won't ever cop an "attitude", unless you want her to. New to the Stepford 9000 series: she's compatible with your entertainment center's universal remote control!
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
"If people really love each other, then they give each other the real stone"
Now... I have never, ever used the "If you loved me you'd sleep with me|suck my dick|swallow|let me fuck your sister|whatever else" bullshit.
I've always thought that sort of attitude was eminently disrespectful to anyone with whom you could possibly have any kind of relationship what so ever. It's something only the completely immoral assholes use on mindless, pathetic simulacra. And I say "immoral", not "amoral", since the statement entails a subversion of a pretense of emotional values.
But, De Beers clearly seems to think it works. It seems to think that this is a perfectly acceptable way to communicate with their clients, in their relationship with us. So, we have that same immoral to simulacrum relationship.
It's nice to be called a "worthless cunt" to your face, isn't it folks?
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Just in case anyone is interested, here's a link to the patent Linares received for their vapor process.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
"Fuck off, loser" doesn't mean they are ready and willing to accept your seed(ling).
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Not sure how things have changed in the last 20 years since this article came out, but here's an interesting piece on how dimaond engagement rings are an invented tradition that only started 60 years ago. (It's comes in three parts b/c it's pretty long.)
part 1
part 2
part 3
It costs at least a thousand times as much to make a good movie as it does to make a good CD. But audio CD's cost nearly twice that of movie DVD's. And what you see on music store shelves represents a fraction of a percent of serious musicians. Cheap internet distribution would enable them to sell a hundred times the selection at one tenth the price. Someone will do it. Maybe in this decade.
DeBeers is an even bigger fraud than the RIAA. Diamonds (even natural ones) are not really scarce. Also, the new lab methods do not all rely on the mettalic solvents to create diamonds. One is deposited as plasma, with no extra gunk in the process. They are white diamonds, of unusual perfection.
BTW, Plastic had this a few weeks ago.
Dean G.
I saw the title and immediately thought: If you shoved the overpriced CD's up the RIAA's asses, in a week you'd get diamonds.
The party's over
it's entirely demand
they feel that people *want* CDs more, so they charge more. not the way competitive market based economies typically work, but if you have a lot of control you can force it.
and sure there are some small cost increases, but i've done enough cd production for friends bands to see the costs. with all costs included it's still cheaper and easier to produce CDs than tapes. and a fair amount of 'bonus tracks' are already recorded, written and produced, they just get left out because some songs always get left out.
incidentally i am all for the new trend to include a dvd with CDs. again, most of the material is already produced--videos, give the band a miniDV camera in the studio, etc--but it's a nice bonus that some companies have begun to include.
botom line: buy more vinyl, and buy it from your local indie record store owner.
!(^((ri)|(mp))aa$)
Do you hear that really loud grinding? That's Cecil Rhodes spinning in his grave.
No, wait, that's the new diamond-based cd copy protection shredding my drive. Damn...
No statement is true, not even this one.
Look at their Asha stone. My wife and I got one of those for our engagement, and the jewlers who put together the ring said that they were fooled from two feet away. And it's harder than anything else non-diamond.
Maybe someday we'll replace it with an actual synthetic diamond!
dinner: it's what's for beer
the people who run De Beers never enter the USA because they will be arrested for running an illegal cartel. Europe has a few De Beers shops now (not sure why we think they are legal). I think it was a judgement 10 or 20 years ago that the diamond cartel was illegal, dont remember the exact details, but it comes up quite often, becasue it is difficult to run a large multinational without ever going to the USA
With the advent of synth diamonds, it could be that the appeal of the rogue african militia's and paramilitary orginazationns would be out of thier gun and weapon money. For without thier precious "RARE" stones to sell then we sould very well see the atrocities of African nations subside a bit. No need for extra cost to verify diamonds, and no more blood. At least thats' what we can hope for. I do wonder what new advertisement campaign Debeers will come out with... "If the love is for real the the Diamonds will be"?!? nmaybe?
-For it is the very essence of imperialism to turn information systems into wild, bloodthirsty animals-
If you had read the article, you would have known that previous synthetic diamonds were as expensive to produce as natural diamonds are to buy. The two companies mentioned in the article have come developed methods to quite cheaply produce diamonds, which is why De Beers is freaking out...they can't compete with someone selling an equivalent of a $15,000 stone for $500. (well, they CAN compete with that, but they really don't WANT to since it means they don't have a strangle hold on the industry anymore.)
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
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
...about how De Beers essentially invented the global diamond market by both controlling the supply and creating the demand:
Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?
Gem quality artificial diamons of significant size don't yet exist (at least not colorless although one company claims to have them coming out this fall), they will NOT be $5, but rather about 2/3rds the cost of the natural ones. And beyond that DeBeers has a flourescense test that will detect artificial diamonds. The real battle will be in convincing Jane Q Public that her man isn't being a cheapskate looser if he gets her an artificial stone for her ring. I have convinced my wife that the replacements to the 1/2 carrat earings that she lost will be 1 carrat synthetics with a gas deposited diamond coating, they are as pretty in the light as real diamons and cost about 1/4th what the smaller "real" stones cost me =) Of course not every woman is so ameniable as the misses.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Menta's article is a travesty. The Wired article reports that the cost per carat for Appollo is $5.00, not that either diamond-maker will sell their diamonds for $5.00.
Menta also tries to argue that CDs are scarce. Last I checked, I could buy CDs at WalMart, Target, the grocery store, music stores, and dozens (if not hundreds) of online stores. CDs are not scarce. Music is not scarce either, and never has been. For people who really love music, they can find it all around them, i.e., in coffee shops, bars, churches, symphonies, independent artists who distribute online, etc. The only thing scarce in the recording industry is talent.
And for the last time, exchanging copyright protected material (like an entire album), without the author's permission, with hundreds (or thousands) of people through a P2P service is copyright infringement. Copyright infringement is not exactly the same thing as theft, but it is a violation of federal law, and some kinds of infringement carry criminal penalties.
The other guys have already made the point that you are mixing up the two techniques.
Id just like to add that even if you are a solid state chemist, there is only one company in the world that has created these flawless lab diamonds (the guy from Wired had them tested) - and the only people who can tell you how do it work for that company, so you are unlikely to get an answer on how they got the metastable phase fixed.
The closest answer I can give you (and it is from the Wired article if youd care to read it) is:
To grow single-crystal diamond using chemical vapor deposition, you must first divine the exact combination of temperature, gas composition, and pressure - a "sweet spot" that results in the formation of a single crystal. Otherwise, innumerable small diamond crystals will rain down. Hitting on the single-crystal sweet spot is like locating a single grain of sand on the beach. There's only one combination among millions. In 1996, Linares found it.
If you want to know more about it then realise that (again, direct quote from Wired):
This June, he finally received a US patent for the process, which already is producing flawless stones.
So the information you require should be found in the US patent office.
I refuse to eat food, because the agricultural subsidies that prop up the US food market keep the rest of the world in abject poverty.
paintball
I agree with you, if a girl is that shallow dump her, you'll be happier in the long run.
Besides, this whole diamond scam was made up fairly recently. In my great grandmothers day an engagment ring didn't have to be a diamond at all.
When I got married my husband gave me a Ducati Monster instead of a diamond ring. That's a gift we can both enjoy!
Wow, it isn't like all us Slashdot posters are judgemental, or anything... As a GIRL who is a GEEK and relatively socially conscious, but also a DIAMOND owner, I guess I really represent the minority here (-: Let's see here: 1) Some smart women like diamonds. I swear. In fact, I know quite a few of them personally. 2) If you are really planning to meet girls based on their gem preferences, you are a LOSER. 3) Canadian diamonds are a very cool alternative - they come with a lasered serial number and logo on the girdle of the diamond - perfect for us tech-geek girls 4) I personally had no desire to have a diamond when we first started ring shopping, but it was my husband-to-be who felt it was a good idea - so don't give me all that bullshit that the guys can see through the marketing stuff, while the girls dreamily suck it all in. 5) I would take an artificial diamond over a real one in a second - a symbol of technological acheivement and science - that sparkles? It's perfect!
don't mess with those geekgrrls