Indies aim to grab share of online sales

Independent record labels behind artists like The White Stripes, Deep Purple and Arctic Monkeys announced a global deal Saturday to pool access to their catalogs, seeking to grab a bigger share of digital music sales from the major record companies. Indies and their trade groups from more than a dozen countries signed on to Merlin, a nonprofit licensing agency that will cut deals on their behalf with download sites and mobile services, under the terms of the agreement unveiled at Midem, a music industry gathering in the French Riviera town of Cannes