So Long, Groovy: YouTube Hits Popular Discord Music Bot With Cease And Desist

There's no lack of Discord music bots out there – bots that you can add to a server that will then play music in voice channels – but unfortunately, Google is shutting down one of the most popular bots around. Groovy Bot, which often pulls songs from YouTube to play them in Discord, has received a cease and desist letter from Google and will shut down as a result. The shutdown will happen next week, so if you're a Groovy Bot user, you've only got a few days left with the service.

Google confirmed that it did indeed send the maker of Groovy, Nik Ammerlaan, a cease and desist letter in a statement to The Verge. "We notified Groovy about violations of our Terms of Service, including modifying the service and using it for commercials purposes," a Google spokesperson said.

While Groovy can be added to Discord servers for free, it does offer a premium, paid subscription that allows users a finer degree of control over various aspects of the bot. For instance, premium members can force Groovy to remain in voice channels 24/7, have full control over the bot's volume output, and they can even stick multiple Groovy bots in a single server, allowing users to play different songs in separate voice channels. However, it seems that Google takes issue with the fact that Groovy offers that premium membership, among other things.

In response to this cease and desist, Ammerlaan announced that Groovy will be shutting down on August 30th. In a post published to the Groovy Discord, Ammerlaan said that any premium members who have paid for service beyond that date will get a refund in the next few weeks. In a separate statement to The Verge, Ammerlaan noted that while Groovy does support other services like Spotify and Soundcloud, around "98 percent of the tracks played on Groovy were from YouTube."

So, one major Discord music bot is going down, and one has to wonder if others that facilitate music playback in Discord through similar means will be forced to follow suit. While there are other options for Groovy users at the moment, that may not be the case in the future.