Have you listened to any radio station more than six hours and noticed that the new Nelly Furtado song has been played eight times already? Have you noticed how much is blows, yet is still played eight times? Well that is because your local disc jockey (DJ) or the station's program directors (PD) has been paid off.

This is a practice known as payola. The record companies pay money to certain individuals to broadcast their records or "the flavor of the week." Lavish gifts have been given to various PD's and DJ's across the nation including, but not limited to, cash, trips, concert tickets, and meet and greets. In recent times, the DJ's have had little or no say in the daily songs selected for airplay. Instead that job lays solely on the PD.

PD's can pay third party or 'independent' record promoters, who will then go and "promote" these songs to radio stations. They offer the radio stations "promotion payments." It has been a win-win as the promoter gets the songs of their clients and record companies on the playlists of some of the largest radio stations in the nation and the PD's get free trips to the This circumvents the old legislation created after Alan Freed (America's first DJ was caught in a payola scandal) and the radio station does not have to come on to the air and say "This next song was paid for by Warner Brothers."

Four major broadcast companies will now pay the government $12.5 million and provide 8,400 half-hour segments of free airtime for independent record labels and local artists as part of a Federal Communications Commission settlement. The free airtime would be granted to companies not owned or controlled by the nation's four dominant music labels — Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, and EMI Group.

The broadcasters represent four of the six largest radio firms in the and own a combined total of 1,653 stations. The cash breakdown on the settlement is Entercom, $4 million; Clear Channel, $3.5 million; Citadel, $2 million; CBS, $3 million. You can bet your sweet ass that those companies made six times that amount for having their songs forced down the throats of the American public.

Payola is difficult to track and this is the single reason that terrestrial radio blows. You will only hear corporate slop because those radio stations are being paid above their salary to play them. Despite what you think, Nickelback is a corporate band. They have a formula they follow for each song and then their new song is played 25 times a day on one radio station in small market Delaware and 45 times in large market New York.

Satellite radio isn't much better because you have to pay to hear corporate slop. Yes, your 80's thrash metal station still plays Exodus, but as Anthrax or Metallica begins grinding their promotional machine you will subtly notice more Metallica or Anthrax is played. This will cause you to question "Where are they now?" Well it just so happens that in two months they have a new album out.

The bottom line is only the fans of music suffer just like they suffer paying .99 cents for a song that should cost less than .50 cents. Some of the greatest music ever created is actually available for free, however, not to you.

Classical music when used in advertising campaigns, political commercials, or even biker rally's is completely free to use as copyright laws didn't exist when those pieces were created. But go to your local Best Buy and try to buy Vivaldi's Four Seasons and it will cost you $9.99. That is because some money grubbing corporation "remastered" the four violin concerto. It cost them nothing to remaster it and they don't owe a dime to any of Vivaldi's surviving family members. That equals pure profit.

This leads me to the moral of the story: steal all the music you can! The RIAA can't prove that YOU are the person who downloaded the music. It could be your child, brother, or roommate. It is tough to prove you did it and therefore you would not have to pay the fines. However, they have big corporate lawyers and it would cost you a crap load to defend yourself. It is also an efficient tatic in scaring people. Burn, steal, copy, rape, all the music you can. I can't fault you for liking Nickelback, but I can fault you for buying their album. Use any or all of the following networks to get your music:

Your way of fucking the man.