• There may be no cliff, but the downward slope is no picnic. Taylor Swift's Fearless is spending its eighth week atop the album chart. More importantly, it sold a mere 63,000 units. At #10, Mariah Carey's Ballads was the weeks' top debut. Last week's 6.43 million units were 12% lower than the same week in 2008. (Billboard.biz)

• Spotify, the next great hope for streaming services, has taken down some content. The problem has to do with which songs can be used in which territories. "These restrictions are a legacy from when most music was sold on tapes and CDs and they have continued over into streaming music, our hope is that one day restrictions like this will disappear for good." That would be nice. (Music Week)

• Related: A very favorable review of Spotify. "The free version of Spotify is supported by advertising, which means that every 20-25 minutes or so you’ll hear a short advert. Compared to the inane product-shifting cack that spews forth from most commercial radio stations, we found these adverts to be fairly unobtrusive (at least for now)." (Digital Lifestyles)

• Spiral Frog's CEO says the company is "a ways away from break-even, we won't get there for the better part of next year." He pointed to the music service's two million registered users (big deal, I'm a registered user and haven't visited the site for probably a year) and the relatively high CPM it can charge advertisers. Repaying those high-interest-rate notes will pose a problem, and I don't think the product offering is going to connect with consumers. Tethered, ad-supported downloads will prove to be a nice idea that couldn't achieve necessary scale. (Digital Music News)

• Profits at EMI Ireland sank after the company took a €1.8 million hit on its pension fund. (When I saw this article, there was a typo that said the fund dropped €1.8 billion in value.) Operating profits were €4.2 million for the year. (Independent)

• Best Buy's CEO said the company is looking at acquiring store locations of bankrupt competitors. Then again, he said the economy is "probably close to a bottom," so I don't know what to think. (Reuters)

• As of yesterday there were 600 Twitterers following Coolfer. And I'm sending regular emails again. Next up: a daily fax. (Kidding. Hopefully.)