YouTube kills another Discord music bot used by over 3 million servers
Today we mourn another Discord music bot that has met the wrath of YouTube: the popular Vexera music bot has discontinued its music functionality after receiving a cease and desist notice from the streaming giant.
“On the 4th of July we have received a notice from YouTube demanding we cease activity of streaming audio from YouTube as part of our music feature,” reads a notice on the Vexera site. “YouTube is integral to the music feature and we cannot continue without it.”
The Vexera music bot, like many before it, offered a convenient way to listen to music synchronized with other people in voice chat. With a simple search command, the bot would search YouTube, find the video you’re looking for, and stream its audio to everyone in the channel. According to Vexera, the bot was active in over 3 million Discord servers.
Vexera’s announcement reads like a near-perfect echo of the downfall of Groovy, the ultra-popular music bot (active in 16 million servers at its height) that was shut down by Google almost two years ago. After Groovy’s closure, those 16 million servers scattered to the wind in search of a suitable replacement. I tried out a few candidates in my own Discord server before settling on Vexera. Oof.
Neither Vexera nor Groovy have shared exactly why YouTube threatened legal action, but in 2021 a YouTube spokesperson said Groovy violated its terms of service by «modifying the service and using it for commercial purposes.» In other words, Google is taking issue with music bots bypassing YouTube’s ads on top of offering paid premium memberships for extra features that Google, presumably, receives no money from.
When Groovy shuttered in 2021, users worried that it signaled the end of all music bots on the platform,
Read more on pcgamer.com
