Those Tom Petty, Phoenix, and Silvertide tracks aren’t the only new things hitting the Rock Band airwaves today: Harmonix has confirmed that the Rock Band Network begins its open beta this afternoon.

Posting on the messageboard of the closed beta, HMXMister_Game reported plans for a major site upgrade today from noon to 5pm, Eastern time. Shortly thereafter, the Wall Street Journal ran a piece about the RBN that began, “MTV Games is hoping to goose sales of its flagging “Rock Band” series with a new service Tuesday that lets average users upload and sell videogame versions of their own music.”

It didn’t take long for HMXMister_Game to confirm the leak: “Tomorrow’s update marks the beginning of open beta. Throughout the last few months, I’ve been continually impressed with all of your participation and cooperation. I know you will welcome all the new members with the same helpful attitude that has gotten us this far.”

It looks like the beta signup process won’t go live until after the website update, so check in at creators.rockband.com after 5:00 Eastern time to sign up. And of course I’ll update this post when it goes live.

UPDATE: It’s up, but there still appear to be some errors with creating and/or linking accounts. Stay patient, friends.

[via Eurogamer]