Judge orders Anna’s Archive to pay $322 million for scraping 86 million tracks from SpotifyAnonymous shadow library Anna’s Archive has been ordered to pay $322 million in damages as punishment for scraping millions of tracks from Spotify.
The order comes as a result of a lawsuit from Spotify and the three major labels: Universal Music Group, Sony, and Warner Music Group.

READ MORE: “AI-generated music is now far from a marginal phenomenon”: 44% of music uploaded to Deezer every day is AI-generated

On April 14, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District Court for New York found Anna’s Archive guilty of charges including copyright infringement, breach of contract, and violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
The prominent music companies initially sought the massive figure of $13 trillion in damages for “brazen theft of millions of files containing nearly all of the world’s commercial sound recordings”.
The amount was justified via $151,000 for the 86 million songs Anna’s Archive claimed to have illegally downloaded from Spotify. Anna’s Archive also retrieved 256 million rows of metadata, including artist names and record titles.
Anna’s Archive stated goal was to share all the music for free via BitTorrent, creating “the largest truly open library in human history.”
The $322 million in damages is a far cry lower than the quite-frankly ludicrous figure of $13 trillion – a significant portion of the $30 trillion total US gross domestic product in 2025, for reference. But how exactly Anna’s Archive will be forced to pay, or whether it’ll even be able to, is currently a question mark. The identities of those behind Anna’s Archive are currently unknown, and they haven’t appeared for any court proceedings.
As such, plaintiffs requested a favourable ruling on the grounds of “failure to answer or otherwise defend against the claims in the Complaint”.
Should payment be made, however, $300 million of the $322 million settlement will go to Spotify. The three major labels will split the rest, receiving roughly $7 million each.
So far, Judge Rakoff has been able to file a preliminary injunction against the group, which ordered internet hosting providers to block domains associated with Anna’s Archive, such as annas-archive.org, annas-archive.li, and annas-archive.se.
The post Judge orders Anna’s Archive to pay $322 million for scraping 86 million tracks from Spotify appeared first on MusicTech.

Vibe-coded plugins are giving me SynthEdit déjà vu
The comments under our recent Amorph piece have been bouncing around in my head for the past few weeks. Some BPB readers are excited about being able to type “give me an overdrive that sounds like a Tube Screamer” and get a working plugin out the other end. Others are pretty concerned that we’re about [...]
View post: Vibe-coded plugins are giving me SynthEdit déjà vu

“AI-generated music is now far from a marginal phenomenon”: 44% of music uploaded to Deezer every day is AI-generatedFrench music streaming service Deezer is seeing 75,000 AI-generated songs uploaded to the platform every day, equating to over two million tracks per month – over 44% of new music uploads.
These numbers are in keeping with a continued rise in AI-generated content uploaded to the platform. In January 2026, the daily number was 60,000, which made up 39%. Before that, in November 2025 the number was 50,000, 30,000 in September, and 10,000 when Deezer introduced its patent-pending AI detection tool to its system in January 2025.

READ MORE: “AI music is never going to take risks because it’s bad for business”: Tallinn Music Week panel plays down concerns around AI music

“AI-generated music is now far from a marginal phenomenon,” says Alexis Lanternier, CEO of Deezer. “As daily deliveries keep increasing, we hope the whole music ecosystem will join us in taking action to help safeguard artists’ rights and promote transparency for fans.”
Deezer has taken significant steps to ensure users are engaging with human-made music. In response to the increasing numbers, Deezer will no longer store high-resolution versions of AI-generated tracks. This comes after it banned AI content from algorithmic recommendations and editorial playlists.
In terms of who is listening to these tracks, according to Deezer, 1-3% of total streams are for AI-generated music, and 85% of those streams are reportedly fraudulent.
Deezer also claims it’s the first major streamer to independently identify AI-generated music. The practice began in June 2025 and has now tagged 13.4 million AI-generated tracks.
“Thanks to our technology and the proactive measures we put in place more than a year ago, we have shown that it’s possible to reduce AI-related fraud and payment dilution in streaming to a minimum,” Lanternier continues. “Since January, we have made our detection technology available for licensing, and we’re looking forward to seeing industry peers of all kinds join us in the fight for fairness in the age of AI.”
The post “AI-generated music is now far from a marginal phenomenon”: 44% of music uploaded to Deezer every day is AI-generated appeared first on MusicTech.

LinkedIn’s CEO is moving on; please hold your tearful video tributesRyan Roslansky has stepped down as LinkedIn's CEO after six years running the world's largest professional network. Dan Shapero, the company's COO, takes over immediately.

Martin Guitar Celebrates Earth Day 2026 with New Biosphere® GuitarNews broke on Wednesday that, "In honor of Earth Day 2026, C. F. Martin & Co.® continues its long-standing commitment to sustainability with the release of the 00L Biosphere IV and its latest Impact Report. Together, these initiatives reflect Martin’s belief that protecting the planet and creating exceptional instruments go hand in hand."

"In the Biosphere series, we have been following a story around the world, and this year we picked the Emperor Penguin in Antarctica for our focus," said Robert Goetzl, who creates the artwork for the Martin Biosphere guitars. "The instruments showcase the biodiversity of water around the globe and highlight the importance of water to all life. The guitars are not only made sustainably, but they also highlight different areas of our planet. They thread together in a larger message of the importance of protecting our environment for all life worldwide."

A company statement reads as follows:

Introducing the 00L Biosphere IV: A Tribute to Antarctica 

Each Earth Day, Martin unveils a special Biosphere guitar that brings together meaningful artistry and responsibly sourced materials—and this year’s model turns its focus to one of the most extreme and fragile environments on Earth. 

The 00L Biosphere IV features original artwork by renowned artist Robert Goetzl, capturing a powerful moment between an emperor penguin parent and its chick. Shielded from the Antarctic wind, the image reflects both resilience and vulnerability in a rapidly changing world. 

“When your environment is at threat, you feel very protective of your offspring—and the creatures around you that need protecting,” says Goetzl. “That’s what this piece is about.” 

Crafted entirely from FSC-certified woods, this sloped-shoulder 00L model features a Sitka spruce top, sapele back and sides, and flamed maple binding. It’s a guitar designed not only to be played, but to spark awareness and inspire action. 

As part of this year’s release, Martin is proud to support the Global Penguin Society with a donation to advance its mission of protecting penguin species, preserving critical coastal ecosystems, and fostering environmental education worldwide. 

2025 Impact Report: Measurable Progress, Meaningful Change 

Alongside the launch of the new Biosphere guitar, Martin is also releasing its 2025 Impact Report, highlighting continued progress across environmental stewardship, community engagement, and philanthropy.  Key highlights include: 

103 grants awarded through the Martin Guitar Charitable Foundation, totaling $594,750 $35,000+ in donated instruments for music education and environmental causes First Martin Sustainability Summit held at the solar-powered Commerce Lane facility Six new instruments built with sustainable and domestically abundant tonewoods 200+ tons of recycled material across Martin facilities 

These efforts represent tangible steps forward in Martin’s ongoing journey to reduce its environmental footprint while supporting the communities it serves. 

A Commitment That Continues 

For nearly two centuries, Martin has relied on the natural world to craft its instruments—and protecting those resources remains essential to its future. From responsible wood sourcing to partnerships with global conservation organizations, sustainability is embedded in every part of the company’s work.  

To learn more about the 00L Biosphere IV and explore the full 2025 Impact Report, visit martinguitar.com/sustainability. The post Martin Guitar Celebrates Earth Day 2026 with New Biosphere® Guitar first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Autonomous Coin Flipper Flips Expensive Coin[Térence Grover] had a very special coin—a  €1,000 commemorative piece only available to Monégasque nationals. If you want to flip one, normally you’d have to go snatch one up from somebody in Monaco—or you could just do it online!
Yes, he built an automated online coin flipper to flip this very special piece of coinage. A 12-volt solenoid is fired to flip the coin into the air. It then lands on its 3D-printed tray, where a Raspberry Pi-based computer vision system built with OpenCV and a TFLite model classifies whether the result is heads or tails via a machine learning algorithm. An iris mechanism operated by servo motor then centers the coin on the tray, so it sits back over the solenoid, ready to flip once again. [Térence] was eventually able to refine this simple homemade build to the point that it ran autonomously for a full 50,000 flips on a livestream without issue.
The mechanism in this build is not dissimilar to a coin flipper we’ve seen before. We’ve also explored the statistics involved, too. Video after the break.

Mathemagical Music Brainwave HarmonizerInstead of adding tones to your music, this VST effect plug-in can modulate any sound using various brainwave entrainment methods. It locks to the BPM of your DAW, so the entrainment works with the music and not against it. By comparing the frequency of the modulators in the displays to the rhythms in your music, you can learn exactly how different rhythms already in your music trigger specific brainwave states. Use it on single channels to embed specific mental states (like focus or relaxation) directly into your instruments. Or use it on your master bus to add them to any frequency band in your full mix. The built in tuning file exporter gets its reference pitch from the BPM in your DAW. These files make it easy to tune many VST instrument plug-ins to be in perfect harmony with your BPM. They work in the latest versions of Serum, Vital, Omnisphere, Zebra and more. Audio examples: https://mathemagicalmusic.bandcamp.com/album/brainwave-harmonizer-demos VST effect plug-in (64-bit). OS: Windows 7 to 11 (Mac not currently supported). Installation: Simply drag and drop the .vst3 file into C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3. One unlock code unlocks both the VST effect plug-in and standalone versions. Read More

Strymon reveal the Canoga The new arrival to the Series a family is a fuzz that's based on a small selection of pedals built by Strymon’s CEO Gregg Stock over a decade ago.

Inside the UMG-backed patent portfolio targeting AI music derivatives: A technical blueprint for the walled garden model?An entity linked to UMG has been building a patent portfolio around AI-music infrastructure
Source

“AI music is never going to take risks because it’s bad for business”: Tallinn Music Week panel plays down concerns around AI musicTallinn Music Week is a festival showcase celebrating emerging artists from all over the world. Each year, it puts on concerts in pub venues and industry conferences discussing important matters in the music industry. Such events include mentorships on music education, the importance of platforming misrepresented voices and the role festivals play in the music industry, to name a few.
On Saturday, 11 April, the festival hosted a conference on the evolution of AI in music, titled ‘Too Much Music. AI Is Flooding the Market. Who Survives?’ It was hosted by Rannar Park, the Head of Research and Development for Brand Estonia.

READ MORE: At Tallinn Music Week 2026, electronic artists are making the case for human-made music

Joining him on the panel were Estonian artist Kitty Florentine, DJ and Somewhere Soul A&R Josh Mason-Quinn, and composer and A Shell in the Pit founder Gordon McGladdery.
“Hands up, who thinks the first one is AI. Hands up with thinks the second one is AI,” said Florentine, after playing snippets of her demos. After some guessing from the audience, the emerging experimental-pop artist confirmed that the second example was made by AI music generator Suno.
Many audience members suggested they could spot the difference due to a “feeling”, while others elaborated that it was down to a level of intuition that “there is not enough human agency in it”. Those making the effort to attend a music conference are likely to be able to spot the often-subtle nuances that separate AI and human-made art, but it begs the question, is the wider music listening world quite so adept?
Alongside discussing the evolution of AI in music, the conference also reassured aspiring musicians with the basics of its complications, in three points:

Clients you will lose to generative AI weren’t good clients
People don’t like AI art
You cannot own the IP to the product created by generative AI

“A human curator can surprise you. We can take risks,” said Mason-Quinn.
“An algorithm sharing AI music is never going to take risks because it’s bad for business… that’s why human recommendation is valuable… a human curator can take you where you’ve never been before,” he continued.
“People appreciate effort. AI removes that effort,” McGladdery added. However, speculations about AI weren’t just about how it has the potential to damage real music. “What if I like it? I’m scared of that scenario,” says a person in the crowd, followed by a shy usher of ‘umms’ from the audience, in agreement.
“I think there’s a hard limit on how much you can enjoy it. Because you can’t see it live,” McGladdery adds.
The AI discourse continues to be a growing matter in the music industry, but ultimately, for Mason-Quinn, it all comes down to the fact, “AI can create music, sure, but it can’t create context out of thin air. It can’t create the meaning and the life experiences of the artist who creates it.”
The post “AI music is never going to take risks because it’s bad for business”: Tallinn Music Week panel plays down concerns around AI music appeared first on MusicTech.

Analog Empire: Bass & Lead from Melda Production Designed for users in search of expressive, high-quality sounds but without the complexity of a fully fledged virtual synth, the latest Analog Empire release features an intuitive interface that promises to deliver great-sounding results quickly and easily.

Electronic music industry grew to $15.1 billion in 2025, with tech house leading the Beatport salesThe electronic music industry grew to a $15.1 billion valuation in 2025, according to this year’s IMS Electronic Music Business Report. This takes into account publishing, revenue from digital streaming platforms, merchandise, and other monetary channels from the industry.
Unveiled at the opening presentation of IMS Ibiza 2026, the Electronic Music Business Report states that the $15.1 billion valuation represents a 7% rise, accelerating on 2024’s 6% growth. Authored by Mark Mulligan, founder of data platform MIDiA Research, the report illustrates a shift towards direct-to-fan channels and “fan-driven ecosystems becoming more central to long-term value creation.”
According to MIDiA’s analysis, recorded music grew by 9%, publishing increased by 11%, and electronic music artists accounted for 18% of all announced catalogue acquisition deals in 2025. Global music subscribers reached 919 million, with Germany remaining the world’s largest electronic music market. Overall listener growth in “key territories” across the globe increased by 11%, says the report.
The report also offers insights into the leading genres and trends in electronic music. Over on Beatport, the most popular music marketplace for dance music (and the majority stakeholder of IMS), tech house leads sales for the third year in a row. Afro house, meanwhile, has “emerged as one of the most dynamic areas of growth,” according to the report, referencing Splice‘s sales of sample packs inspired by the genre.
Speaking of creator platforms, the report explores the continued influence of TikTok and SoundCloud. These two businesses are cited as “key engines for discovery” in electronic music, thanks to hashtags and the adoption of viral trends.
In live electronic music — DJing and live performances — the report claims that electronic music “remains central” to the global live music economy. Ibiza’s ticket revenue reached €160 million in 2025, which IMS says points to “a shift toward higher-value experiences and more concentrated demand.”
IMS’ report paints a rosy picture of electronic music. However, as highlighted by Aurelia Sarah Ortiz (managing director of Encode Talent) in a subsequent analysis panel at IMS Ibiza, the €160 million Ibiza revenue reflects an increase in overall ticket prices and possibly fewer attendees at such events.
In the same panel, Mulligan predicts that in 2026/27, the reverse effect will occur, where ticket prices will become more affordable for general admission, and costs will be offset by higher-priced VIP tickets.
Read more music tech news.
The post Electronic music industry grew to $15.1 billion in 2025, with tech house leading the Beatport sales appeared first on MusicTech.

The Freequency releases Bloomer Free, an emotional chord engine plugin
Bloomer Free, from the developer Freequency, is a MIDI chord progression generator driven by emotion. When I say driven by emotion, I mean you don’t need to know lots of music theory to generate a beautiful progression; you just need to know which emotion you want to evoke. Right now, Bloomer Free is available in [...]
View post: The Freequency releases Bloomer Free, an emotional chord engine plugin

Lorenzo Raganzini builds loud, intense techno with as few tracks as possibleAfter Lorenzo Raganzini became known for techno metal, he booked a live show at a 2,000-capacity venue in Berlin, where he advertised he would play guitar to fuel his high-energy productions on stage.

READ MORE: “I’ll never go back to 440Hz”: How Ziggy Marley found his new frequency

He had never played a guitar before in his life.
On his tracks, he used plugins like Archetype’s Gojira X, recorded professional guitarists. But he took on the challenge anyway and gave himself one year to learn well enough to perform live.
“Now I need to learn. Tickets were going really fast. This is real. There are gonna be 2,000 people expecting me to play well,” Raganzini explains. “The stress of learning to play guitar in just one year cost me a lot of acupuncture in my back.”
His next live set didn’t require physical intervention, but it was still quite the undertaking. He performed a live electronic set, combining classic pieces of hardware with newer innovations.

The primary piece was the Midas Venice 240, the same tried-and-true mixing desk that techno legend Paul Kalkbrenner uses during his shows. On the more modern side, he linked a Motu UltraLite-mk5 and Arturia AudioFuse X8 OUT extender. The Motu UltraLite has eight mono outputs, and the AudioFuse adds eight more.
However, where many artists would send the wide array of outputs into a series of experimental apparatuses to maximize the tactile manipulation of live set, 16 outputs is the bare minimum for Raganzini to properly deliver his original music.
To run the core elements of his tracks, such as kick, bass, and synth, with his Erica Synths Zen Delay and the Strymon BigSky Multidimensional Reverb, the sounds have to be output in stereo. All of the inputs and outputs on the Ultralite are mono, which could work for live sets made up of different, more minimal elements, but that is not the case with Raganzini’s brand of techno.
Lorenzo Raganzini. Image: Press
“All my sounds are pretty fat and wide. Even the bass has one part in mono, but also one top part in stereo, which makes it really big. The kick isn’t a 909. It’s a kick with some rumble in it, and some space,” he says. “Everything needs to go out in stereo. If I want to separate more, I will need a really big and also very expensive sound card.”
Until that time, he is content with working with eight primary channels, both live and in the studio. “My dream is to always work with eight tracks,” he says. Even when he’s combining techno and metal. In the thick of these two distinct walls of sound, the ostensibly easier path would be to load the sessions with different tracks: duplicates of drums, layers of effects, numerous distorted synths stacked on top of each other.
The song We Are Rebels, from his debut album, Techno Rebels, packs the walls with aggressive guitars, intense screams, galloping synths, and titanic drums. And yet somehow, Raganzini’s approach is actually quite minimalistic, whether he’s making techno metal or one of the various other techno styles he explores on the LP:
“For me, a song is made of three channels: Kick, bass, and synth. There, you have the idea; that is where I like to focus,” Raganzini says. “When I’m in testing mode, and I just want to have fun, sometimes I add a lot of channels, one on top of the other. I feel like it’s going to be super energetic, but after a few hours, I remove everything, and I feel that without all the percussion, it was more energetic. The bass was more present, the kick more present.”
While it might seem like purposefully creating with less would make things easier, the dichotomy between the process and his goal for the music can cause tension. Raganzini’s goal is complex. The music is loud, yes, but it’s about properly communicating musical ideas from three core elements, as he does on stage.
“For me, a song is made of three channels: Kick, bass, and synth. There, you have the idea; that is where I like to focus”
“You need to be very sure about those three elements. It’s [easier] to stop thinking about them and add more stuff on top,” Raganzini says. “I need to remind myself, keep it simple, because at the end, if the idea is there, you don’t need to add so much stuff. It’s counterintuitive and hard.”
As hard as it may be, he keeps going, as he did with his live sets. He’s not naive. He knows a significant portion of the crowd probably can’t tell a bit of difference between when he’s performing live or DJing. And after DJing for 13 years, he is confident in his ability to create a unique, intentional experience for his audience.
“I don’t know if it’s really worth it to do all this, to put all this effort into creating something different, if at the end it’s just a matter of making people dance. But I wanted to do it, I wanted to believe in this approach — in the possibility of doing something different and challenging,” Raganzini admits.
Lorenzo Raganzini. Image: Press
“In a DJ set, very few things can go wrong. Maybe one CDJ dies —you still have three of them. But if something happens live, you probably have to stop the whole performance. This put me in a vulnerable position, where I wanted to place myself. When you’re vulnerable, you are more sensitive, and you connect more with people.”
His vulnerability fuels all of the challenges. He could get away with overloading his sessions to make loud music, but instead, he communicates honest ideas. They’re loud and intense because that’s what’s going on inside his mind and heart, and that’s how he approached Techno Rebels.
Raganzini wrote an entire story to coincide with the record. He doesn’t want to share specifics because it’s too personal, but for each song, there is a specific scene that he dictated and meditated on before making the music.
“All these influences that I put in the album — 90s music, like The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, nu metal, everything that I listen to in my head — made me what I am today. Being a rebel is to publish that music without comparison,” Raganzini says. “I’m not sure if people will like it or not, but it is what it is. I don’t know where to put it or where it could be played. I wanted to take the courage and tell my life story with 11 songs.”
The post Lorenzo Raganzini builds loud, intense techno with as few tracks as possible appeared first on MusicTech.

Get premium Slate Digital plugin(s) for FREE with the SPRING26 coupon code
Slate Digital is running a Spring Sale with the coupon code SPRING26, which knocks $25 off your order in the shop. A handful of paid plugins are currently priced at $24.50 each during the sale, so the discount covers the full price and brings them down to zero. The crazy part is that the code [...]
View post: Get premium Slate Digital plugin(s) for FREE with the SPRING26 coupon code