Remember the days of free waves?

After working to extract larger royalty payments from webcasters, the music industry is now gunning for more money from terrestrial broadcast radio, reports BusinessWeek.

Royalty payments from traditional radio stations go only to the songwriter. Singers or larger bands saw nothing, as did labels, which largely treated radio play as a commercial for the full record.

But now that payments to all three entities are virtually locked up from small webcasters who can ill-afford them, labels are going after Big Radio's deeper pockets.

A group of musicians, singers and industry groups have been lobbying Congress to amend existing copyright law to award royalties to others involved in the song's creation. Some now say radio is actually working against record companies by giving people access to free music.

One analyst even says without radio, music sales might go up 50 to 60 percent since people would have to buy the song or record in order to hear it. How those consumers are expected to learn about new songs or records was not addressed.

One Clear Channel executive points out that radio provides free advertising for artists. But it's the larger advertising revenue of the bigger radio operators that has record industry groups and singers putting them in crosshairs.