• DRM is such a heavy duty issue that Billboard.biz set up a dedicated page on the topic that collects related articles.

• Wired will now put its music-related blog posts, previously found in Listening Post, into three separate blogs: Epicenter ("RIAA lawsuits, copyright issues"), Gadget Lab ("music gear") and Compiler ("music software and sites"). Good news if you like like a broad range of topics, bad news if you'd rather get straight to the music issues.

• This is a few days old, but I just ran across this IFPI press release with 2006 music sales info for Germany. Total CD sales were up about 1.3% but total unit sales dropped about 1.5% because sales of physical singles were down considerably. Download sales were up 40% but along with mobile accounted for only 5% of sales. CDs accounted for 85% of sales, and music videos represented 9% of sales. Chart share of German-language artists rose to 38.1% from 35.3% in 2005. (IFPI.org)