Hurt me! Hurt me! It hurts so gooood!

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From the Radio and Internet Newsletter, here's a story that begs the question, "Then why in the world do record labels send scads of free promo copies of albums and singles to radio stations? Not to mention willingly play the payola game with broadcasters?" Read on:

Recording artists and a member of the U.S. Copyright office were among witnesses who argued today in a Congressional hearing that the promotional value of broadcast radio insufficiently compensates artists for their work, and asked Congress to impose a new performance royalty on broadcast radio.

Much of the testimony heard today by the Committee for the Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, a subcommittee of the House Committee on the Judiciary, challenged the broadcast industry's longstanding exemption from paying a performance royalty.

Sam Moore, part of the best-selling Stax recording act Sam & Dave and founding member of pro-performance royalty coalition musicFIRST, argued in his testimony that, "without a huge promotional budget and massive marketing support, radio does absolutely nothing to promote sales of my records."

AND WHILE I'M ON A ROLL, if radio so sucks as a promotional vehicle for musicians and labels, why do artist websites routinely exhort their "street teams" to call radio stations (even listing all the appropriately formatted ones by city and state, then listing their E-mail addresses and request-line numbers) and DEMAND that they play the singer's or band's single du jour?

Hello? Is this K-Puke? Dude, can you ruin MetalDeth's CD sales and, ultimately, wreck their career by playing Nookie Na-Na Rawwwwwwwk? You can!?! EXCELLENT! The guys are really hosed now!

UM HMMMMMMMM. . . .