MTV to launch Rock Band Network for artists to sell their own music

MTV plans to launch a Rock Band Network that will enable any music artist, whether signed, unsigned or emerging to be included in Rock Band.
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Currently in closed Beta MTV plans to go into open Beta in August and opening it via an online store on Xbox 360 before year's end, separate from the current Rock Band store.

Eventually, it will also be made available via PSN and Wii.

"We've figured out how to make it so anybody who owns and controls masters and publishing can put music into ["Rock Band"] at their own pace," says MTV Games senior VP Paul DeGooyer. "We're talking about a set of serious professional tools to allow people on the front line of writing and recording songs to completely control their destiny with respect to interactive products and then giving them direct access to the download store."

Rather than deal with Harmonix, artists and labels will submit songs to freelance Harmonix-trained developers who will prepare the tracks for the game, and labels can also hire trained developers or existing employees to do the work in-house.

Songs submitted are to be reviewed to check for playability, inappropriate lyrics, copyright infringement before being released and artists can set their own price and receive 30% of any resulting sales.

Gamers will also be able to demo 30-second samples of each track.

Sounds great.

More over on Billboard.