Guitar World have released their Guitar World Tabs beta site and it may be the first legal tabs site out there. It features both the tabs they publish in their magazine in a non downloadable format, as well as user submitted videos and tabs.

I am very curious at how the user submitted tabs are handled. Do they publish everything, or does it have to run by the publishing companies to get approval first? I find it very odd that the publishing companies are allowing these tabs to run while shutting down every other tab site out there. I would have to assume there is some sort of advertising or revenue splitting agreement. But if they are willing to do that here why not offer it to somewhere like Ultimate Guitar? Guitar World will never catch up in terms of tab quantity or community participation as UG. UG has a much larger user base and potential marketing audience and surely that is enough for them to start thinking about ways to collaborate and not go all RIAA on the sites.

Do you think GW’s Tabs site will last? Or is it only a matter of time before the music publishers realise that they won’t make any money there and eventually pull their support? What do you think?