NOKIA rolled out the Independent Artists Club (IAC) on Thursday, a programme that will promote the discovery of home-grown music and talent from Asia Pacific.

IAC will not only provide opportunities for new artists from around the region to be heard by people from across the world, but also give music fans a new platform to discover new music that's available in countries across Asia Pacific - through the mobile phone.

IAC will be rolled out progressively across the region, including countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand over the next six months.

The local roll-out will be signaled in each country by the launch of a localised website where initially artists will be invited to upload their tracks, and have those tracks rated, consumed and downloaded by music lovers.

By mid-December, artists will be able to upload their tracks themselves. Music lovers can start rating the tracks and voting for their favourites in the last week of December.

Artists that accumulate the most votes for their tracks via the IAC website will be listed in the Nokia Independent Artists Club Chart, which will be distributed regularly to the media and industry. They will also be given the chance to perform at Nokia-sponsored events and concerts, and participate in marketing and publicity initiatives for the IAC.

'Music is an important pillar of our Consumer Internet Services strategy, so it is important for us to nurture the local music industry, which will ultimately be the catalyst for great local content to be discovered and appreciated by consumers,' said Mark McCallum, Director of Marketing, Asia Pacific, Nokia. 'Once the local sites and talent pools have been developed, we hope to make IAC a living entity for artists to showcase their talent, and a resource for consumers to get their music fill.'

Invited bands have already begun uploading their music, while all other bands can begin uploading their tracks to the site by mid-December 2007.

Music lovers can now check out the IAC website and download music at www.nokiaasia. com/iac. The localised site for Singapore is now live, with other local sites going live in the weeks to come.

From the IAC website, Nokia device owners can download up to ten full tracks per month for free, and non-Nokia device owners can download up to five full tracks per month for free (mp3 and aac formats only).