View this article at: http://dev.macnn.com/articles/06/05/01/itunes.flat.rate.contracts Monday, May 01, 2006 6:50pm Apple renews iTunes flat-ra... Apple on Monday said it had renewed contracts with the four largest record companies to sell songs through its iTunes for 99 cents each, according to The Financial Times. The agreements were signed with Universal, Warner Music, EMI and Sony BMG, following months of public jockeying on song pricing. The music labels wanted to implement variable pricing to charge more for more popular songs, while Steve Jobs, calling the Labels "greedy," wanted keep the flat price structure. The agreement is seen largely as a defeat for music labels, as they struggle to regain control of the online music industry, which is dominated by Apple's iTunes but continues to grow rapidly. The report says that online music sales surged 194 per cent last year to 352 million songs, according to Nielsen Soundscan. Overall album sales fell 3.9 percent. Rival Napster has begun to offer free songs via the Web in a effort to break Apple's stranglehold on digital music, which accounts for about 5 percent of overall album sales.