(Length: 18 pages)

Executive Summary (This is a document excerpt)

In the past five years, the music industry experienced a historic $2 billion decline, driven mostly by technology-enabled piracy. Like a terminal patient, the industry resisted the inevitable, passing through the classic stages of death and dying as described by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and, finally, acceptance. What's the lesson for the media business? Monoculture thinking — deriving all revenues from a single source — leads to inflexible behavior and leaves industries vulnerable. Movie studios, which are now used to embracing multiple revenue streams, are well positioned in this new world. Newspapers, facing threats to classifieds revenue as well as their news audience from online competitors, are the most vulnerable.