• Live Nation continues its expansion. The concert giant announce it will acquire Signatures Network, the music merchandising company, in a deal worth $79 million. Signatures holds merchandise licenses to such artists as Kanye West and U2. Last month, the New York Post reported Live Nation was closing in on a deal for Signatures valued at $50 million. (Reuters)

• Chet Flippo chimes in on 360 artist contracts ("a lot of potential drawbacks to this path") and gives some history on such deals (going all the way back to Hank Williams' deal with Acuff-Rose). (CMT.com)

• With a U.S.-China summit two weeks away, representatives from three majors and the IFPI met with the European Commission's trade commissioner to talk about piracy concerns. The parties voiced concerns about three things: online piracy in China, market access restrictions and the absence of broadcasting and public performance rights. (Euro Observer)

• Since RCRDL LBL is going to be a talking point for a while, you may want to listen to a podcast at the website of RCRD LBL advertiser Nikon. It's an interview with co-founder Peter Rojas in which he discusses the business model. Said Rojas, "We're taking the A&R function, the discovery function of a record label, and marrying that to the great platform that you have as a blog, not just blogging as a genre but really blogging as a format or as a platform, as a publishing platform for getting niche content out there. What we recognized was that if we were going to put music out there for free then a blog was really the ideal platform to do that, and to have a place where music fans could go and everyday be turned on to something new to an artist they already know or discover something brand new that hopefully they'll like." (Nikon Podcast)

• Nominees for the 2008 Plug Awards have been announced. Coolfer got a nomination for Music Blog of the Year, which is nice since I don't talk music much and stick to unsexy business topics. (Plug Awards)

• The Boston Modern Orchestra Project is going to launch its own record label, BMOP Sound, in January 2008. (All About Jazz)

• It has been widely reported that Oasis was considering a donation scheme for its upcoming album. This article says that while the band is recording without a deal with a label, singer Liam Gallagher stated the band has no intention of allowing people to have its music without the band getting paid. (AndPop.com)

• Here's a good article, a sort of introduction to the topic, on home music systems that can connect to the Internet without going through a PC. (BusinessWeek.com)