MUMBAI: Believe Digital's subsidiary, Zimbalam, has opened its services to Indian self-produced artistes, which will now allow them to distribute their music worldwide on Zimbalam. The digital music distribution services will provide Indian artistes the opportunity to sell their music to a global audience through various online stores and streaming platforms.

Zimbalam will help artistes get onto major online stores like iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon, as well as streaming platforms like Spotify and Deezer. The digital music distribution services, had also partnered with YouTube for their new music streaming service, YouTube Music Key. The service will help Indian artistes discover new revenue making streams and expand their fan base.

"India is a very exciting market for us," said Believe Digital India country manager Vivek Raina. "We have been getting enquiries from various independent musicians for the service. Through the service, we hope to sure that every independent artist can get the distribution set-up in a simple and economical way."

Raina added that like Indonesia, India will also have a new website and pricing based on the understanding of the market. As of now, the new website is up and running along with some promotional plans. Currently, the service is priced between $9.99 for a single and $19.99 for an entire album, which is lower as compared to other mature markets. There are no annual fees or hidden charges, and the music can remain online as long as the artiste chooses. Artistes will earn a total of 90 per cent from all sales of royalties. They are providing a free service for the first release with the promo code FREEMYMUSIC as part of their introductory offer in India.

The service maintains that "artistes will have full control of their online profiles and exclusive ownership of their music". It will allow artistes to get detailed information like audience outreach, in order to provide transparency.

"While we hope to attract Pakistani and Bangladeshi musicians, our major target will continue to be Indian musicians," Raina added.

In the future, Zimbalam is looking at partnering with radio and television to create more awareness about their service amongst Indian indie artistes.

First launched in France in June 2009, Zimbalam has been expanding its network of talent around the globe since 2010 and now supports more than 1, 00,000 artistes worldwide.