Germans Lead Europe in Music Downloading (eMarketer)

Germans are getting their tunes on the digital autobahn.

Europeans — especially the French — aren't too keen on digital rights management (DRM) with their music.

Still, the German market for legitimate music downloading grew by a third in the past year, according to new data from BITKOM.

Germans downloaded 26 million singles and albums in 2006, up from 20 million the year before. BITKOM estimates that the number of downloads will grow another 27% this year, reaching a total of 33 million in 2007.