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In an interview with US business magazine Forbes, eMusic's president and chief executive David Pakman acknowledged that he had been approached 'by everyone' but insisted that the company can maintain its position as the number two digital music retailer while remaining independent.

'I can confirm there are no talks right now with any strategic buyer,' he said. 'The company's not for sale. The company is in no need of financing, and our growth is off the charts.'

eMusic has had 100 per cent annual growth for the past

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three years and according to research firm NPD is second only to Apple's iTunes in terms of the number of music downloads sold. And this despite - or perhaps because - it only sells music from 13,000 independent labels that support its no-DRM policy.

Pakman said that he has no plans to change eMusic's focus on non-mainstream music, despite the recent decision by EMI to begin selling its music without DRM.

'We would only carry the stuff from the majors that our customers want us to carry ,' he said. 'We would not take their entire catalogue by any means. You would not see a lot of Janet Jackson in our service. But what we would see from EMI - the Blue Note catalogue or EMI Classics - would do hugely well. Their label Astralwerks is probably an under-performer at iTunes but would do really, really well here.'

He also defended eMusic's policy of selling a block of downloads for a single monthly fee, rather then selling them on a track-by track basis, arguing that it delivers better value, with tracks costing around 20p each, the only 'downside' being that you have to buy at least 50 tracks.