The Wall Street Journal's Ethan Smith has an article that just went up about executive in-fighting at Live Nation over its strategy of signing top artists to top-dollar, multi-rights deals. Give it a read.

Opposing views between Chief Executive Michael Rapino and chairman Michael Cohl reportedly escalated "into a full-blown feud, with Mr. Cohl threatening to leave Live Nation and move his business to Miami" (though a no-compete clause would prevent that). Rapino is said to want to slow the rate at which artists are signed to huge deals while Cohl wants to "quickly strike deals with as many as 15 more artists."

People close to Live Nation said the company is not wavering from its 360 deals dispite their disagreements on how many deals should be signed.

I couldn't help but think of the cleverly titled report by a Banc of America securities analyst released when Live Nation signed Madonna. Maybe "For $120 Million, She's All Yours" was a proper assessment of the risks of these deals.

Extra credit reading:

• "Live Nation And Jay-Z: Setting A New Tone For Music Industry?" at CNBC
• "Defending Madonna's $100 million deal" at Fortune