The musicians’ fight for free, legal tablature (a form of text-based music notation) has finally paid off. Today MXTabs.net officially launched as the world’s first free, legal tablature network, providing guitarists, bassists and drummers with an online community in which to freely create tablature and share their knowledge of how to play tens of thousands of songs.
The month of July is MXTabs launch month, starting with the premier of the official, and newly redesigned MXTabs.net web site on July 1st. MXTabs has also partnered with Taylor Guitars® to give away four guitars from the legendary company throughout the month, including two of their new electric guitars. Additional prizes, including MXTabs t-shirts, messenger bags and other branded merchandise will also be awarded.
Featuring licenses from Alfred Publishing, Sony/ATV, Universal MGB, Domino Publishing, BUG Music and several thousand additional publishers, MXTabs boasts a catalog of nearly 50,000 licensed, user-created tablatures (tabs), with more being added daily. The tabs for the songs are created and shared by the users of the site, with a focus on a free and legal distribution of knowledge and information. Publishers and songwriters are paid for their intellectual property through an advertising revenue-share model.
All songwriters, whether they are part of a large global publisher or simply an individual who has written a song can participate in MXTabs. In what is a first for user-generated arrangements of copyright-protected material, a full 50% of ad revenues is paid directly to publishers, songwriters and copyright holders, while the community receives free, unlimited access to the tablature on the site.
In addition to music tablature, MXTabs offers a fully-featured social network community, including the ability for users to find and add friends, participate in the MXTabs musician forums, post blogs and video lessons, as well as show off photos of their music gear.
“The purpose of MXTabs is to allow musicians to freely share their knowledge and to participate in a community with other musicians,” said Bill Aicher, MXTabs’ project manager. “The rebirth of MXTabs was done with the direct input of previous users of the site and what we’ve built is directly based on what musicians have been asking us for.”
To participate, publishers and administrators are encouraged to visit the site at www.mxtabs.net.
About MXTabs.net: MXTabs.net is the first legitimately licensed online social community designed to provide musicians with access to free guitar, bass and drum tablature, while also compensating music publishers and songwriters through a share of advertising revenue. Originally launched in 1999, MXTabs was one of the first, largest and most popular destinations for freely available online tabs. In 2006 the site voluntarily closed its doors due to issues of copyright, and the assets have since been acquired by Musicnotes, Inc. It officially re-launched on July 1, 2008.
