Yahoo! signed a licensing deal with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Webnoize reported. The RIAA is currently negotiating licensing with a group of companies which provide streamed music--a group that includes AOL and MTV--but Yahoo! opted to negotiate on its own.

USA Today reported on digital music kiosks in which one can burn a custom CD compilation of songs from various artists. The catch, currently, is that the kiosk has to have a wide-enough array of songs to make burning a CD worthwhile, and as the article points out, "legitimately available online music is still scarce." Kiosks are mainly located inside CD stores, though some department store chains are also experimenting with them.

Rhino Records has been releasing "Soul Train" CDs featuring songs from each year of the R&B/soul TV show, which has been on the air since 1970. September sees the release of the "1974" and "1975" collections.

Sony's country imprint Lucky Dog will release "Unleashed Live" on Sept. 26. The CD captures Jack Ingram [ tickets ], Charlie Robison [ tickets ] and Bruce Robison [ tickets ] on their 1999 tour.

Guitarist Steve Vai [ tickets ], who has played with Frank Zappa, David Lee Roth and Whitesnake, will receive an honorary doctor of music degree from the Berklee College of Music.

LiveDaily Briefly, who knows nothing about the college, always thinks of a lyric from Zappa's "Yo, Cats" whenever the subject comes up:

You have made it
You are cool
You have been to the Berklee school
You give clinics on the side
Music has died
No one cried

Of course, Zappa also said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

From staff reports, compiled by James Woster.