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Soundbuzz signs up six Indian record labels

Singapore-based digital music firm Soundbuzz on Tuesday said it has signed agreements to distribute six Indian music labels, opening up a huge market for Internet music downloads in India.

Tips Industries , which has rights to some of the Indian film industry's most popular music, was the first to sign up with Soundbuzz last month for paid music downloads.

Soundbuzz, a leader among Asia's online music distributors, said the other labels included BMG Crescendo, Lahiri Media, Times Music, EMI Virgin and Archies Music.

Sudhanshu Sarronwala, co-founder and chief executive officer of Soundbuzz, told a news conference that the deals with the six Indian labels gave Soundbuzz access to 50,000 songs.

The online music firm is present in nine markets in the Asia-Pacific region and has partnerships with 50 record labels.

Sarronwala said the company would distribute digital music both online through music stores on the Internet and offline as packages with computers, mobile phones and personal digital assistants.

The deals with the Indian labels signalled the start of a vibrant singles market in India, as customers can download a single song rather than buy a whole CD or cassette, he said.

Tips managing director Kumar Taurani said his company saw immense potential in the distribution of secure digital music.

"We are going all out to capitalise on our timely entry and are confident of capturing a major share of music on the Internet," he said.

Tips, which as a 20 per cent share of the Indian music market, recently bought the rights for Hindi filmmaker Subhash Ghai's latest movie Yaadein, paying Rs 65 million -- the highest amount ever paid for music rights of a film out of Bollywood.

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