So my gut is that there’s little chance that Congress will pass something called “The Performance Rights Act,” which would force radio stations to pay musicians–or at least, music labels–whenever they play one of their recordings.

Mind you, I think the musicians and their labels have a good argument here. Radio stations already pay songwriters whenever their songs are played on the radio–it’s one of the reasons that the music publishing business hasn’t fallen off a cliff even though CD sales have. But the people who actually recorded the song (or who own the recordings) don’t get anything.

The radio stations argue that this is OK because they’re providing free promotion for the industry. But U.S. terrestrial radio stations are just about the only ones who get away with this.

All of the of Internet Webcasters have to pay performers something, and so does Sirius XM Satellite (SIRI). And as Warner Music Group (WMG) boss Edgar Bronfman Jr. likes to point out, there’s only a handful of other countries that give radio a free ride as the U.S. does, and those include North Korea and Iran. Meanwhile, the industry needs the dough more than ever since its primary revenue source keeps falling away.

But… while there are less sympathetic lobbies than the music business, it sure would be easy for the radio stations, which have a pretty good handle on Washington, to knock this one down, no?

Slap up an ad with that shows Britney Spears driving with her kid on her lap or staggering around an MTV stage or cavorting with K-Fed, and run a simple tag line: “Britney wants more money. Tell Congress not to give her any.”

All that said, there are plenty of optimists who think the music industry is going to end up with some kind of extra dough in the end. Industry watcher Glenn Peoples is a smart guy, and he thinks that’s the case. From his Coolfer blog:

“One of two outcomes will come from todays’ three-and-a-half hour hearing on the Performance Rights Act: Either the committee will approve the Performance Rights Act or the National Association of Broadcasters and labels will reach their own agreement. It is very clear the committee members understand the promotional value of radio but think it is unfair that only radio stations get to decide what the amount of that value. The issue of whether there should or should not be a performance right is all but decided. The issue to now be resolved is the value of the right and the timing of its introduction.”

Glenn has comprehensive coverage of the House’s hearing about the issue today. Note the industry’s designated musician: Billy Corgan, best known as the angry bald dude who sang for the Smashing Pumpkins. By all accounts, he turned in an excellent performance today.

[Image credit: Britneyspears.com]

That appears to be the conclusion that visitors to GNR’s MySpace page, where the album is being streamed in its entirety, have reached. Lots of people are showing up at the page, which encourages them to preorder the album, which goes on sale exclusively at Best Buy (BBY) on Tuesday. But few of them are sticking around to actually listen to the whole thing.

Glenn Peoples at Coolfer has actually plotted out the song-by-song streaming results. The numbers in Glenn’s chart, below, are a day or so old at this point, but they’re directionally accurate: Only about 20 percent of the visitors to the page are sticking around to hear the whole album.

What to make of that? Probably an Occam’s Razor answer: People check out the page out of curiosity, hear the first few songs (the title track plays automatically when you load the page), and decide they stink.

More charitable answer: Web music fans in 2008 just don’t listen to entire albums, period. Glenn makes a nod toward this by noting that people who have checked out the MySpace page for the new Paul McCartney album also flit away after a track or two. Perhaps News Corp.’s (NWS) social network just isn’t the place to stream more than a couple songs. (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones and this Web site.)

But I’m going with the first explanation: These may be Guns N’ Roses songs, but they’re not good Guns N’ Roses songs.

Remember those? Here’s one, from way, way back in 1991, which as I recall was the tail end of the band’s heyday.

Would you like a professional reviewer’s take on the new album. No problem: Chuck Klosterman takes a crack at it in The Onion. And while we’re addressing all things Axl, a question for MediaMemo readers: Does anyone remember “White Trash Wins Lotto,” the excellent GNR-meets-Gilbert & Sullivan production from about a decade ago? I can still remember the songs, but can’t find them anywhere. Any help, either in comments or via email, much appreciated: peter@allthingsd.com.

For now, though, Datz is better in theory than in the real world, and Apple (AAPL) doesn’t have much to worry about. So says CNET UK (via Coolfer), after giving the service a trial run.

Pros: You can indeed download all the music that Datz has to offer–primarily music from EMI and Warner Music Group (WMG). The songs download fast, and they sound good.

Cons: It’s nearly impossible to find anything, the songs aren’t labeled correctly, the interface is terrible, etc, etc. Oh, also–it’s missing most of the music that you can find everywhere else on the Web.

Basically, this is a work in progress. Which is fine. It just seems odd to ask customers to pay for it.