YouTube, which is owned by Google, is cracking down on Discord music bots. The proprietors of the popular Groovy Bot, which enables Discord users play music from YouTube videos and is installed on over 16 million Discord servers, have received a cease and desist letter from Google. Groovy is cooperating with Google’s request for the service to be decommissioned within seven days, and its bot will be decommissioned on August 30th.
Google confirmed to The Verge that it took motion on this case: “We notified Groovy about violations of our Phrases of Service, together with modifying the service and utilizing it for business functions,” a YouTube spokesperson writes, including that its APIs are for builders who adjust to its phrases of service.
“Groovy has been an enormous a part of my life over the previous 5 years. It began as a result of my buddy’s bot sucked and I believed I may make a greater one,” says Nik Ammerlaan, Groovy Bot proprietor, in a message saying the closure. The Groovy Bot pulls music from YouTube and allows Discord users to listen to it and share it on servers where the bot is installed.
Groovy Bot is a Discord bot that allows you to have a communal listening party using audio from YouTube videos. It has grown in popularity dramatically over the last five years, with some estimates indicating that it now has more than 250 million users. It has now gained Google’s and YouTube’s attention.
“I’m undecided why they determined to ship it [a cease and desist] now,” says Ammerlaan in an interview with The Verge. “They in all probability simply didn’t learn about it, to be trustworthy.” Ammerlaan admits Groovy Bot has been a “enormous weight” on his shoulders over the previous 5 years, and that Google’s actions have been all the time one thing he noticed coming. “It was only a matter of seeing when it might occur,” says Ammerlaan.
While Groovy Bot works with Spotify, YouTube, Soundcloud, and other firms, Ammerlaan confesses that “something like 98 percent of the tunes performed on Groovy were from YouTube.” Google’s decision to take Groovy Bot offline could signal that similar action would be taken against other Discord bot owners.
Rythm, the most popular Discord music bot, is still going strong… for now. In a statement to its clients, Jet, a Rythm bot co-owner, said, “We don’t plan to close down at the present.” Rythm is installed on around 20 million Discord servers and claims to have over 560 million users as a result.
We attempted to contact one of Rythm’s owners, but after initially responding, the owner did not answer to questions regarding whether or not Google had issued a cease and desist order. If Google isn’t proud of Groovy Bot, it’s difficult to believe it will allow Rythm to continue.
Groovy Bot’s demise comes only weeks after a slew of YouTube video download websites mysteriously vanished. The removal of this bot also leaves a significant void in Discord’s bot selection.
“We take the rights of others severely and require builders who create bots for Discord to do the identical,” says a Discord spokesperson in a press release to The Verge. “If a bot operating on Discord violates another person’s rights, that third social gathering or Discord might take motion.”