EMI managers have met around the world with many of its artists' lawyers and managers over the past 18 months in an effort to convince them that they should allow their songs to be sold on the Internet. To demonstrate how much money artists may be losing to unauthorized song sharing, EMI executives will search Kazaa for songs by an EMI artist they are scheduled to meet. At the meeting, EMI shows the artist a snapshot of their pirated works, demonstrating that at any particular moment, hundreds of the artist's songs were swapped among millions of Kazaa users.

Record companies and online services must also secure a song's publishing rights, also known as "mechanical rights," a term that was spurred by the invention of the player piano, the first device to reproduce a musician's work.

There are two major music publishing companies -- EMI and Warner/Chappell Music Inc., owned by Time Warner Inc. -- and at least 27,000 smaller ones. When attempting to release a CD for sale on the Internet, record companies must go song by song and contact each songwriter to negotiate for the online rights. Sixty-five to 70 percent of the publishers are represented by the Harry Fox Agency, established in 1927 to protect its members' rights and collect and disburse royalty payments to them.

But the rest of the publishers are not represented by Harry Fox, which means they cannot be easily located through a central database. And if found, some are unwilling to sell their rights. Some are unable to sell because they are dead.

"You can be sure the heirs are a son and daughter who aren't talking to each other and one of those two is getting divorced," joked a music company executive.

Maintaining Artistic Integrity

Some artists, such as cerebral Brit-rockers Radiohead, believe their albums should be listened to in their entirety and will not sell them online as singles.

Securing rights to the band's songs reflect the many cracks that exist in a system that encompasses sprawling music companies, far-flung publishers, temperamental artists and mega-retailers to be on the same page. Until last Monday, several songs from Radiohead's "Kid A" CD were for sale for 88 cents each on Wal-Mart's online music site. A day after Radiohead's label, EMI, was informed of that by a reporter, the singles were gone, replaced with a note reading, "song not sold individually." EMI said it noticed the Wal-Mart transgression the previous week.

Madonna may be the ultimate singles singer and is also among the most powerful. She can dictate that her albums be sold online as whole works or not at all.

"There is the philosophy that it cannibalizes album sales," said Caresse Henry, Madonna's manager for the past 14 years. Madonna probably will begin selling singles online in the coming months, Henry said, but maybe not through one of the existing services.

Another factor holding up Madonna's singles: royalty rates. Musicians should be paid a higher royalty for songs sold online than those sold in CD or album form, Henry said, because in the online world the record companies do not bear the costs associated with manufacturing CDs. When iTunes sells a song for 99 cents, 70 cents is paid to the artist's record company. The artist typically gets 10 to 15 cents; the songwriter, about 8 cents.

Though Henry said she is not happy that her client loses money to free online song sharing, "thank goodness Madonna has had a successful career and made money."

Wal-Mart and BuyMusic have agreed to Madonna's terms -- her recent "American Life" album is sold online -- but iTunes and Napster have not. Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs is so adamant about selling singles, as is Napster, that he would rather keep Madonna off iTunes until she agrees to sell her songs individually.

"It's not that we don't respect the concept of the album as art, but particularly in light of fact that all the tracks are available individually on every illegal free service, it doesn't seem to make sense that they're not available in other than on album format on the legitimate services where the artist actually makes money," said Napster's Atkins. "To compete with the illegal sites, we need to at least offer consumers what they can get there, so maybe the artists have to look at that and make different decisions."