Terms of Use

These are the terms for using Techne: the website at techne.fm, the forum, the Techne Hub desktop app, and everything you buy, claim or download here. "We", "us" and "our" mean Techne.fm, a business based in the United States. "You" means the person using the service.

By using Techne you agree to these terms. If you install a plugin you also agree to the Software License Agreement. If something here conflicts with a right the law of your country gives you and does not let us take away, the law wins.

1. Accounts

You sign in with Google, Discord, or a one-time link sent to your email. There is no password. Keep your email address current, because it is how we reach you and how your purchases find you. You are responsible for what happens on your account, so do not share your sign-in.

You must be at least 16 to have an account. One person, one account; we may merge or close duplicates. You can delete your account from your account settings. Purchase records are kept as described in the Privacy Policy so you can recover what you bought if you come back with the same email.

We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, abuses the service, or has not been paid for. If we close your account for a breach, you are not owed a refund.

2. Purchases and refunds

Prices are in US dollars. Tax is added at checkout where it applies. Payments are processed by Stripe; we never see or store your card number. Your order is complete when we send the download, key or credit, and the receipt lists what you got.

Paid plugins. Try the demo first: every plugin runs in demo mode with every feature until you activate it (after the first clean minute the output goes silent for 5 seconds every minute), and the demo is the trial. Once a license key has been issued the sale is final, except where the law of your country gives you a right we cannot exclude. If a plugin does not work as described, contact us within 14 days of purchase and we will fix it, replace it, or refund you.

Crates and music downloads. The same digital-content rule applies: once a download has been delivered the sale is final, except where the law of your country says otherwise. If a file is faulty or not what was described, tell us within 14 days and we will fix, replace or refund it.

Memberships. Cancel any time. Your access continues to the end of the period you have paid for, and there are no partial refunds for the time left.

If you are a consumer in the EU or the UK. You normally have 14 days to withdraw from an online purchase. For digital content that is not on a physical medium, that right ends once delivery begins with your agreement. At checkout you tick a box confirming that you want the download or license key delivered immediately and that you understand you lose the right to withdraw once it has been delivered. If you do not tick it we do not deliver until the 14 days have passed. Your statutory rights for faulty digital content are not affected by any of this.

To ask for a refund, email support@techne.fm with your order number. Refunds go back to the payment method you used. Where a plugin is refunded its license ends and you must uninstall it.

3. Memberships

Signal and Forge are paid memberships billed monthly or yearly through Stripe. What each tier includes is listed on the join page at the time you subscribe.

Renewal. Your membership renews automatically at the end of each billing period, at the then-current price for your tier, until you cancel. Cancel from your membership page; the cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for. If we change the price of your tier we will email you at least 30 days before the new price applies, so you can cancel first.

Failed payments. If a renewal payment fails we will retry it and email you. If it still fails, the membership ends and its benefits stop.

All Access. From February 2, 2027, Signal and Forge include every paid Techne plugin while the membership is active. Plugins activated through a membership check in with us periodically to confirm it is still active.

When a membership ends. Plugins you had through All Access return to demo mode, unless you bought them outright. Crates you Kept and anything you bought stay yours. Member-only downloads stop, but files you already downloaded and music you already made with them are yours to keep and use under the sample license.

4. Software

Techne plugins (VST3, CLAP and AU) and the Techne Hub are licensed, not sold, under the Software License Agreement. In short: you may install a plugin on up to five computers you control, for any personal or commercial purpose; audio you make with it is yours; you may not share keys, resell, reverse engineer, or tamper with the licensing.

Free plugins are claimed with an email address. Paid plugins come with a license key. Activation sends us the key, the product, your platform, a hashed hardware id and your computer's name, so we can count seats and show you which machine is which on your Devices page, where you can also deactivate one. The plugin checks in with us periodically to confirm the license. The Hub signs in with a device code and keeps its session in your operating system's keychain; you can sign a computer out from the same page.

5. Sample and crate license

Crates are sample packs: one-shots, loops and the like. When you buy a crate, Keep one as a member, or Claim a free one, we give you a license to use the sounds in it. The license is royalty-free, worldwide and perpetual, and it covers your own music and media, commercial or not: tracks, releases, performances, podcasts, games, film and video, and anything else you make. You do not owe us credit or royalties.

You may not:

• resell, share, or redistribute the sounds themselves, on their own or repackaged, as a sample pack, library, preset bank, kit, expansion, or anything else whose point is the sounds rather than your music;
• register the raw sounds, or anything that is mostly the raw sounds, with a content-ID or fingerprinting system, because that would claim other people's music too;
• use the sounds to train, fine-tune, or build a dataset for machine learning or AI systems; or
• claim ownership of the sounds, or let someone else use your copy as their own.

Purchases and Keeps are permanent: the license does not end if you cancel a membership or close your account. Access that comes only from a membership, such as downloading member-included crates, ends with the membership for new downloads, but what you already downloaded and already made is covered for good. Each download is for you; a studio or team needs a license per person who uses the sounds.

6. Music license

Streaming on Techne is for your personal listening. Music you buy is licensed to you for personal use: play it, keep it on your devices, make backups. You may not upload, redistribute, sell, or stream it to others, and you may not sample it, remix it, or use it in video, games, adverts or any other sync without a separate license. Rights holders are usually glad to talk, so if you want to do any of that, email support@techne.fm and we will put you in touch.

7. Store credit and vouchers

Store credit, vouchers and discount codes can be used on techne.fm only. They have no cash value, cannot be transferred or sold, and cannot be exchanged for money, except where the law requires it. If credit or a code expires, the expiry date is shown when it is issued and on your account page. One code per order unless the offer says otherwise. Credit is applied before tax; a refund of an order paid partly with credit returns that part as credit.

We can cancel credit or codes that were obtained or used by fraud, by breaking these terms, or by mistake on our side (for example a code that was never meant to be public), and we can refuse an order that relies on them.

8. Affiliates and referrals

If you join our referral or affiliate programme you get a link, and we pay you a commission on purchases made through it. The rate, the attribution window and what counts are shown on the programme page at the time; they can change for future referrals, not past ones.

• Commission is earned on completed purchases that are not refunded or charged back. Payouts are held for 30 days after the purchase so that refunds can be netted off.
• No self-referral: buying through your own link, or through a link you control, earns nothing.
• No paid search or social ads that bid on "Techne", our product names, or close misspellings, and no pretending to be us.
• No spam: do not post your link where it is not wanted, and follow anti-spam law where you are.
• Say that it is an affiliate link where the law or the platform you post on requires it.

We can withhold or reverse commissions, and remove you from the programme, where we see fraud, abuse, or a breach of these rules. You are responsible for any tax on what we pay you.

9. Forum and user content

What you post on the forum, in your profile, or anywhere else on Techne stays yours. You give us a worldwide, royalty-free license to host, display, and share it as part of running the service, including after you delete your account where other people's posts quote or reply to it. You can delete your own posts.

Do not post anything you do not have the right to post, or that is abusive, harassing, hateful, pornographic, or illegal, and do not post other people's private information. We can remove content and suspend or ban accounts that break these rules, without warning if we need to. We do not pre-screen posts and are not responsible for what members post.

10. Copyright and takedown

We respect copyright and expect members to. If you believe something on Techne infringes your copyright, email support@techne.fm with:

• your name, address, phone number and email;
• a description of the work you say has been infringed;
• the URL or exact location of the material on Techne;
• a statement that you believe in good faith that the use is not authorised by the copyright owner, their agent, or the law;
• a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorised to act for them; and
• your physical or electronic signature.

We will remove or disable access to the material and tell the person who posted it. They may send a counter-notice with their contact details, the material and where it was, a statement under penalty of perjury that it was removed by mistake or misidentification, and their consent to the jurisdiction of the federal court for their address (or ours if they are outside the United States). If we get a valid counter-notice we may restore the material after 10 business days unless you tell us you have filed a court action. We close the accounts of repeat infringers.

11. Acceptable use

When using Techne you must not:

• get around licensing, activation, download limits, or membership checks;
• create extra accounts to claim free crates or plugins more than once, or share access with people who are not on your account;
• scrape, crawl, or bulk-download the catalog, or use bots to use the service;
• probe, overload, or interfere with the service or other people's use of it;
• upload malware or anything designed to harm; or
• use Techne for anything illegal.

12. Disclaimer and limitation of liability

Techne is provided as it is. We work to keep it running and accurate, but we do not promise it will be available all the time, free of errors, or compatible with every computer, DAW or host. Keep backups of your projects and your downloads.

To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental or consequential losses, including lost data, lost projects, lost profits or lost revenue. Our total liability to you for everything arising out of Techne or these terms is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the event that gave rise to the claim.

Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or, if you are a consumer, your statutory rights, including rights to a remedy for faulty digital content. If you are a consumer in the EU or the UK, the limits above apply only as far as your local law allows.

13. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the law of the State of New York, United States, and disputes are heard in the courts there, except that if you are a consumer in the EU or the UK you keep the protection of the mandatory consumer law of the country you live in, and you may bring a claim in your local courts. There is no arbitration clause and no class-action waiver in these terms.

If something goes wrong, email us first at support@techne.fm. Almost everything can be sorted out that way. EU consumers can also use the European Commission's online dispute resolution platform.

14. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. When we do, we post the new version here with a new "last updated" date. If a change is material, for example to refunds, renewals or licenses, we will email account holders before it takes effect. Continuing to use Techne after the date means you accept the new terms; if you do not, cancel and stop using the service. Changes do not take away a license you already have.

If any part of these terms turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still applies. If we do not enforce something straight away, we have not given it up.

15. Contact

Techne.fm
Postal address on request
support@techne.fm