eMusic, the online music service which sell DRM-free MP3 and focuses on indie music, may be heading into trouble, according to this Billlboard story. It says that at least six eMusic partners—three of whom were listed among eMusic’s top 60 labels this week—plan to either to pull their catalog from the service entirely or to limit content to back-catalog tracks when their current licensing deals expire.

SEE ALSO: eMusic: No Sale Talks At This Point

The reason? These labels feel eMusic is trying to pad its subscriber base to make itself a more attractive acquisition target. Unless the service raises prices and, in turn, the compensation provided to labels, they intend to withdraw..some labels receive as little as 12 cents per song in profit, far less than the 60 cents to 65 cents per track received from iTunes, the story says…of course the price point is not 99 cents per song, but much lower. The service counts more than 13K indie labels as partners, and, at the moment, complaints are a small part…

eMusic CEO David Pakman last month said in a Forbes.com interview that the company is not for sale…“I can confirm there are no talks right now with any strategic buyer. The company’s not for sale.” Also, he e-mailed MP3.com on this Billboard story and said that his company found fault with the report and said the majority of the more than 13,000 indie labels working with eMusic are happy with its service.

Meanwhile, in another opinion column, also on Billboard, this is a good argument for eMusic: “Sure they make less per track than iTunes, but they’re making more in aggregate on eMusic than they will on iTunes. There’s some sort of mass hallucination among the music industry that the current prices being paid to license music—be it for a la carte, subscription or streaming radio services—represent a “fair market value” that the industry itself arbitrarily set based on what they wanted to be paid. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, fair market value is based on what consumers are willing to pay, not way the sellers want to charge.”