Today, MTV and Harmonix have announced a new initiative for music artists and record labels the ability to author their own original recordings into gameplay files and sell their music as playable tracks through the new Rock Band Network.

“Our goal with Rock Band has always been to go beyond making music games and create a true music platform,” said Alex Rigopulos, CEO and co-founder of Harmonix. “With the Rock Band Network, we’ve evolved the platform to its next logical step, giving players access to an incredible amount of new music by putting the professional tools we use in the hands of the artists themselves.”

The Rock Band Network will have an open beta that will start in late August of this year, and will have detailed documentation on how bands can begin the process of authoring songs into Rock Band gameplay files. Publishers will need to have a membership to Microsoft’s XNA Creators Club Online, which can be purchased for four months at $49.99 or for a year at $99.99.

“The Rock Band Network enables songwriters and musicians – at any stage of their careers – to create their own paths through the interactive music realm,” said Paul DeGooyer, SVP, Electronic Games and Music, MTV Networks Music Group. “Our download store has been an extraordinary success, and it’s exciting for us to provide access to our platform through this uniquely elegant solution.”

Tracks, once created, can be uploaded onto Creators.RockBand.com for testing and critiques. Once approved, the tracks will go live in the Rock Band music store. Songs will debut exclusively on Xbox 360 for 30 days. Artists featured in the store will be able to choose from multiple pricing tiers for individual tracks and will be compensated via a payment system that provides automated accounting and regular royalty payments.

“The proven strength and stability of Microsoft’s game development tools, technologies and services allowed Harmonix to focus on making an easy-to-use experience for authors without needing to reinvent the wheel,” said Dave Mitchell. “Rock Band Network is a model example of integration with XNA Creators Club Online.”

This new concept looks like it will benefit both independent artists as well as record labels. I think that this will help to add some great variety to the music store by opening up the market to more artists and players would love to see have songs available.