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> Effectively a tool for adding background tunes to a chat room, Groovy worked by pulling audio directly from YouTube videos, joining voice calls, and playing m

> Effectively a tool for adding background tunes to a chat room, Groovy worked by pulling audio directly from YouTube videos, joining voice calls, and playing music queued up by users It's not surprising that this was shut down like most "freeload until we get caught" hobby crafts. But is there a way to build this service in a legit way on top of any existing music services? For example, if you were able to give Groovy your Youtube Music API key at a subscription level premium enough for your Discord server, but that doesn't exist on Youtube. I can imagine there isn't much upside for the big players in these hard spaces to support "glue app" value like Groovy, but how can you build Groovy without building your own music service?

blibble 5y ago
I'm always surprised the source code doesn't accidentally leak out when this sort of C&D occurs
- me_me_me 5y ago
  > a big "fuck you" to google Ehh, I'll be the devil's advocate, google makes money via tracking and ads. Both were avoided by using the bot. big brother is just protecting their business model.
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    I'd take a bet that the email chain that began the process to send Groovy the C&D started with one of the companies who license music to YouTube.
- notamy 5y ago
  The code used for scraping YouTube and streaming audio to Discord has always been open source: - https://github.com/sedmelluq/lavaplayer https://github.com/sedmelluq/lavaplayer - https://github.com/freyacodes/Lavalink https://github.com/freyacodes/Lavalink
- ddoolin 5y ago
  Discord.js (the primary Node.js interface to the Discord API) is chock full of exactly this code -- as examples even. Using ytdl to stream into voice channels.
IshKebab 5y ago
> But is there a way to build this service in a legit way on top of any existing music services? Probably not because it would count as a performance and no consumer music services are licensed for that. You'd need something like whatever pubs and shops use.
- wldcordeiro 5y ago
  So the question is how do we create a space for something like this? I don't think most people consider this kind of music as a "performance" it's just the RIAA dictating stuff.
  - sli 5y ago
    Realistically this will probably spawn a bunch of small scale (i.e. single server), bespoke music bots doing the exact same thing.
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    The way to enable this would require some legislation. It doesn't matter what most people consider, legally it is performance and RIAA has the right to dictate stuff regarding it unless/until the laws change. So the way to go is by public advocacy and lobbying, not by looking for e.g. some technical solution.
zorr 5y ago
Any service that broadcasts licensed music to users is going to have issues like this someday. See how tricky it is to have legal background music on a Twitch stream. I think the best way forward for this kind of thing is to not broadcast the music but instead have each user use their own local player with their personal Spotify/YouTube account and sync the playlist through a shared service.
- sova 5y ago
  Metallica played BlizzCon and the stream on Twitch had their audio replaced / covered up by elevator music [1] [1] https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/9529030/twitch-metallica-blizzcon-performance/ https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/9529030/twitch-metal...
  - Macha 5y ago
    Similarly Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park) and Herman Li (Dragonforce) ran into trouble performing their own music on Twitch during the pandemic. While in Li's case, it's possible that he didn't consult other rightsholders, Mike Shinoda mentioned that rights for Linkin Park music are held by a small number of people (possibly just the band?) and he offered Twitch that he could provide explicit consent from those people if they could exempt his channel from DMCA enforcement of LP music - twitch replied they simply didn't have a system in place that could handle that.
    - albatross13 5y ago
      > Similarly Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park) and Herman Li (Dragonforce) ran into trouble performing their own music on Twitch during the pandemic My god we live in a strange world.
      - mritun 5y ago
        Not in this case. It’s incorrect to call that they “own” the music if they don’t own the rights to it anymore because they sold the rights to someone else in exchange for money. One can make a great painting and then sell the painting and the right to make copies of the painting to someone else. In this case, they would not be able to redraw that painting anymore than anyone else can.
janci 5y ago
What about just syncing the playlist and seek position and leaving the actual playback to every client with original youtube player (or even better music.youtube.com) ?
belorn 5y ago
> But is there a way to build this service in a legit way on top of any existing music services? One could always build an AI that train on the youtube data to provide background music that take a suggestion from discord and then fill in music that is generated with portions that are recognizable from copyrighted music but then does not do provide the whole song. User can then rate the background music and provide input to the AI.
- dcow 5y ago
  AI copyright laundering is going to be a fascinating new legal domain.
zimpenfish 5y ago
> But is there a way to build this service in a legit way on top of any existing music services? Discord surely have enough lawyers and, you'd hope with a $10bn valuation, enough financial clout to wave at the record companies to get the kind of license they'd need to give their users background tunes. But that would cost them time, money, and put them on the hook for shenanigans...
dcow 5y ago
This is why copyright is dumb and doesn't translate properly to cyberspace. There is no way in hell the RIAA would bring a case against you for listening to a record that you own in the privacy of your home with a group of your friends. This is the exact cyberspace equivalent to this meatspace activity, which is obviously entirely legal and desirable and socially acceptable. The fact that we can't have nice things over a technicality that there's some distance involved and computers is utterly insane.

blibble 5y ago

I'm always surprised the source code doesn't accidentally leak out when this sort of C&D occurs

me_me_me 5y ago
> a big "fuck you" to google Ehh, I'll be the devil's advocate, google makes money via tracking and ads. Both were avoided by using the bot. big brother is just protecting their business model.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  I'd take a bet that the email chain that began the process to send Groovy the C&D started with one of the companies who license music to YouTube.
notamy 5y ago
The code used for scraping YouTube and streaming audio to Discord has always been open source: - https://github.com/sedmelluq/lavaplayer https://github.com/sedmelluq/lavaplayer - https://github.com/freyacodes/Lavalink https://github.com/freyacodes/Lavalink
ddoolin 5y ago
Discord.js (the primary Node.js interface to the Discord API) is chock full of exactly this code -- as examples even. Using ytdl to stream into voice channels.

IshKebab 5y ago

> But is there a way to build this service in a legit way on top of any existing music services? Probably not because it would count as a performance and no consumer music services are licensed for that. You'd need something like whatever pubs and shops use.

wldcordeiro 5y ago
So the question is how do we create a space for something like this? I don't think most people consider this kind of music as a "performance" it's just the RIAA dictating stuff.
- sli 5y ago
  Realistically this will probably spawn a bunch of small scale (i.e. single server), bespoke music bots doing the exact same thing.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  The way to enable this would require some legislation. It doesn't matter what most people consider, legally it is performance and RIAA has the right to dictate stuff regarding it unless/until the laws change. So the way to go is by public advocacy and lobbying, not by looking for e.g. some technical solution.

zorr 5y ago

Any service that broadcasts licensed music to users is going to have issues like this someday. See how tricky it is to have legal background music on a Twitch stream. I think the best way forward for this kind of thing is to not broadcast the music but instead have each user use their own local player with their personal Spotify/YouTube account and sync the playlist through a shared service.

sova 5y ago
Metallica played BlizzCon and the stream on Twitch had their audio replaced / covered up by elevator music [1] [1] https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/9529030/twitch-metallica-blizzcon-performance/ https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/9529030/twitch-metal...
- Macha 5y ago
  Similarly Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park) and Herman Li (Dragonforce) ran into trouble performing their own music on Twitch during the pandemic. While in Li's case, it's possible that he didn't consult other rightsholders, Mike Shinoda mentioned that rights for Linkin Park music are held by a small number of people (possibly just the band?) and he offered Twitch that he could provide explicit consent from those people if they could exempt his channel from DMCA enforcement of LP music - twitch replied they simply didn't have a system in place that could handle that.
  - albatross13 5y ago
    > Similarly Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park) and Herman Li (Dragonforce) ran into trouble performing their own music on Twitch during the pandemic My god we live in a strange world.
    - mritun 5y ago
      Not in this case. It’s incorrect to call that they “own” the music if they don’t own the rights to it anymore because they sold the rights to someone else in exchange for money. One can make a great painting and then sell the painting and the right to make copies of the painting to someone else. In this case, they would not be able to redraw that painting anymore than anyone else can.

janci 5y ago

What about just syncing the playlist and seek position and leaving the actual playback to every client with original youtube player (or even better music.youtube.com) ?

belorn 5y ago

> But is there a way to build this service in a legit way on top of any existing music services? One could always build an AI that train on the youtube data to provide background music that take a suggestion from discord and then fill in music that is generated with portions that are recognizable from copyrighted music but then does not do provide the whole song. User can then rate the background music and provide input to the AI.

dcow 5y ago
AI copyright laundering is going to be a fascinating new legal domain.

zimpenfish 5y ago

> But is there a way to build this service in a legit way on top of any existing music services? Discord surely have enough lawyers and, you'd hope with a $10bn valuation, enough financial clout to wave at the record companies to get the kind of license they'd need to give their users background tunes. But that would cost them time, money, and put them on the hook for shenanigans...

dcow 5y ago

This is why copyright is dumb and doesn't translate properly to cyberspace. There is no way in hell the RIAA would bring a case against you for listening to a record that you own in the privacy of your home with a group of your friends. This is the exact cyberspace equivalent to this meatspace activity, which is obviously entirely legal and desirable and socially acceptable. The fact that we can't have nice things over a technicality that there's some distance involved and computers is utterly insane.