Discord bot Groovy stops working on Monday after Google summons

Discord bot Groovy will retire on Monday. The developer received a threatening letter from Google, because the bot allows users to play audio from YouTube without ads. That’s against YouTube’s terms of use.

The developer will refund paying users in the coming weeks, he says in a message on its own server that The Verge published earlier. Groovy will go offline on Monday, almost a week after the developer’s announcement. The bot has been operating for five years and has been on about 16 million servers.

It is unknown what will happen to similar bots and software. The Verge notes that Rhythm still appears to be active, while several YouTube download services have just disappeared in recent weeks. YouTube parent company Google confirms the action against Groovy, but has not said anything about a larger action against software that violates YouTube’s terms of use. Bots such as Groovy and Rhythm make it possible to listen to music together with users in a joint channel via various services, including YouTube.