YouTube May Be Cracking Down on API Wrapper Apps like Musi — Here’s What’s Emerging

Photo Credit: Musi

The popular iOS music streaming app Musi may be fighting a losing battle against YouTube’s efforts to crackdown on API abuse.In 2023, YouTube began targeting apps that block ads on YouTube for its free users, with pop ups asking those users to disable their ad blockers. Now it appears to be going after grey market API wrapper apps—apps that serve up YouTube content while serving ads of their own on the side. Musi largely serves ads to teens who are seeking out ‘free YouTube Premium’ features like background listening.

Users sit through ads when they open the Musi app, then they can stream uninterrupted audio. Video ads play silently inside the app while the music continues, while banner ads appear at the bottom of the screen. If users are annoyed by the ads, they can pay a one-time fee of $5.99 to the developers of Musi for an ad-free experience. The only problem here is that Musi does not license the music it serves and companies like Vevo have stated they will take action against their content appearing in the app.

Digital Music News ran a story last week about the app, with industry figures calling it a ‘parasitic threat’ to the current music streaming model. The increased awareness of how teenagers and young people are using Musi may be resulting in some trouble for the developers of the app. Reports in the subreddit over the last week of problems streaming music inside the app have kicked up. In one post entitled, “Seems Musi is having some issues,” we can see the exact error message kicked back.

“Musi wasn’t able to play this track—sign in to confirm you’re not a bot,” is the error message returned. Users say when they sign in to YouTube through the Musi app, the sign-in does not stick and they cannot stream music because of the error message. An official reddit support account with the name “musi_app_support” suggests users with the ‘bot error’ should sign in to a VPN to prevent streaming issues. Several people are complaining and showcasing the same error—could this be YouTube taking action against Musi?While Musi is in a grey area of operation, both the YouTube API terms of service and the iOS terms of service have provisions for dealing with Musi. YouTube’s API ToS says developers agree not to use the YouTube API without prior written approval for “the sale of advertising, sponsorships, or promotions on any page of the API client containing YouTube audiovisual content unless other content not obtained from YouTube appears on the same page and is of sufficient value to be the basis for such sales.”

Musi’s only content comes from YouTube and it displays banner ads on these pages, which suggests it is in violation of this provision in the YouTube API ToS. Meanwhile, the iOS ToS state for developers that “apps should not facilitate illegal file sharing or include the ability to save, convert, or download media from third-party sources without explicit authorization from those sources. Streaming of audio/video content may also violate terms of use, so be sure to check before your app accesses those services.”