Musicians and record companies are sending an inflatable pig across the country to get their message out.

The 12-foot pig represents the "piggish" attitude   of radio companies that don't want to pay musicians to play their music, spokesman Mark Corallo said. He represents the Radio Accountability Project, an advocacy group that has been fighting radio stations and the National Association of Broadcasters on this issue.

The pig, along with a sign that reads "Fair Pay for Musicians," went up in front of NAB's national office Wednesday afternoon. Corallo said that pedestrians immediately started asking why it was there.

That's the whole point of the campaign. Corallo's group favors HR 848 , a bill that would make broadcasters pay a fee to musicians every time they play their music -- just as satellite and internet radio currently do.

He said his team is up against a $70 million campaign by NAB to block the bill. The agency has run 40,000 ads on radio stations since President's Day, according to Corallo.

It's been even harder to lobby for the bill because few people know about the issue.

So RAP members will travel along with the pig, which already has stops planned in Houston and Nashville, over the next few months to tell citizens why they should care about the issue.

"It's really important that people across the country understand that there is this completely unfair loophole in the law," Corallo said.

Opponents counter that a broadcast performance fee would benefit record companies more than the individual artists.

-- Ambreen Ali, Congress.org