Madison, Wisc. - Musicnotes, the creator of the first licensed site offering free guitar and other instrument tablature, on Wednesday announced new deals with Sony/ATV, EMI Christian Music Group, Alfred Publishing and several others to bring their repertoire to its MXTabs.net site. MXTabs.net features over 35,000 user-generated tabs that have been legally licensed for distribution, and paid for through an advertising revenue-sharing deal with Musicnotes. The site is now set for an official worldwide launch on July 1.

San Diego - Slacker, the maker of a portable music player and corresponding radio service, announced on Tuesday that it has signed agreements with EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing (NYSE: SNE), Universal Music Publishing Group and Warner/Chappell Music (NYSE: WMG), which will allow users to transfer songs from its online radio service to Slacker portable players. The company said the deals were completed before it launched its Slacker Portable hit the market in November. Slacker lets users create interactive radio stations; songs from the stations are then periodically updated on the portable player. A premium version that allows users to permanently store songs is also available starting at $7.50 per month.

Washington - The Digital Media Association (DiMA), which represents large webcasters like Yahoo, (NASD: YHOO) AOL (NYSE: TWX) and Microsoft (NASD: MSFT), has filed a brief asking the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) to refer the question of whether or not an interactive music stream needs a separate "reproduction" license, in addition to the performance license they already pay, to the U.S. Copyright Office, Billboard reported. "Digital music services believe that digital performances are like radio and should require a performance license only," DiMA said in a statement, referring to the license that both webcasters and radio broadcasters pay to performing rights organizations ASCAP, BMI and SESAC.

New York - Sony/ATV Music Publishing announced on Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire Viacom's music publishing arm, Famous Music, for about $370 million.

New York - Sony/ATV Music Publishing announced on Tuesday that it has acquired the catalogue of songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, which includes more than forty Top 40 hits, such as "Stand By Me," "Hound Dog" and "Love Potion #9." Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.