Sony and EMI declined to comment for this article. Warner Music also declined to comment, but in a recent Senate hearing, the company criticized the Universal-EMI merger as bad for big labels and independent artists alike, and claimed it was open to digital services, noting that it was the first record label to embrace iTunes. Compatibility: Windows 2K / XP / Vista / 2003 "They're all two-year deals, and the labels have full visibility into the financials, as shareholders and from royalty statements," noted Reid. "So if a service is getting any kind of profit margin, the labels are going to come right back and negotiate a new contract that eats that margin. It seems impossible for these services to generate any kind of sustainable profitability." Labels then get to calculate their royalties in one of two ways, whichever is more lucrative. They can take a small amount every time one of their songs is streamed -- frequently about a penny per play -- or just take a set percentage of the service's total revenues. The iTunes talks demonstrated that a multibillion-dollar corporation running its own sophisticated legal and lobbying operations could take on the major labels and win. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs armed with a few million dollars in venture capital generally don't fare so well. Neither do artists, especially independent ones with even fewer resources at their disposal. Want to mp3 merge into one file? Look no further... Our Free mp3 merge is your final station. It can help you merge a large number of audio files with different formats into one larger file with one format such as MP3, WAV, WMA and OGG without hassle. With this powerful application, you can also combine many separate music tracks into one non-stop audio CD. Remove or trim a music file in order to make it better and save the space