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Such websites have been around for some time, publishing the tabs without the consent of the copyright holder. The US Music Publishers Association (MPA), for example, announced a legal crackdown on these, as well as sites that reproduced song lyrics, in 2005.

Under the terms of the new licensing deals, websites will be entitled to reproduce tabs provided they share advertising revenues with the HFA. The first website to carry the tabs will be Musicnotes' mxtabs.et, in the summer.

'We are excited to have the technology and the expertise to assist publishers and songwriters in monetising this burgeoning area of

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interest among musicians which, until now, has largely not been served in this way,' said Kathleen Marsh, CEO of Musicnotes. 'Our experience as the world's leading digital sheet music company has placed us in a unique position to deliver this guitar tablature to millions of interested consumers.'

However, rather than gaining a blanket licence, Musicnotes still has to seek permission from individual copyright holders, which means that the website is unlikely to provide a comprehensive resource for some time, if ever.

It will also remain reliant on its users to create and upload the tabs, hence the need to ensure that the site relies on advertising to provide free access to its content.

Last year, music database provider Gracenote acquired the rights from all five major music publishers and many smaller publishers to provide song lyrics over the Internet. The company already provides information such as track and album names to the makers of software like Apple's iTunes that automatically recognise the contents of a ripped CD. Gracenote recently extended its Lyrics programme to Europe.

The service has yet to be widely adopted, perhaps because, as Gracenote acknowledged, the process of entering many millions of song lyrics into a database would be 'painstaking' and time consuming.