![]() ![]() Speculation, but no firm answers on blocking For millions of Indians VLC is the primary choice for running all kinds of media formats for free." Advertisement The letter to India's government said, "VLC is currently being used by 80 million Indians, and has consistently seen an average of 25 million downloads per year in India since its release. In fact, the Government of India also appears to use VLC Media Player's icon and logo on its website promoting open source softwares." VideoLAN's letter told Indian government officials that the blocking "is particularly shocking to us, since the Government of India itself endorses the use of VLC as a part of its Digital India initiative, where it has expressed its intention to use open-source softwares for government applications. So this topic is a bit of a shock to us." In an email, Kempf told Ars that "VideoLAN is an organization that does not do politics (we only take position on anti-DRM and pro-open source subjects). VideoLAN is a French nonprofit organization that developed the free, open source VLC Media Player. The letter said attempts to reach the URL in India resulted in the message, "Your requested URL has been blocked as per the directions received from the Department of Telecommunications, Government of India." ![]() "Despite reportage and uproar on social media, no reasons for blocking the URL were provided to us, or to the Indian public." "In March 2022, to our shock and dismay, the URL ' ' appeared to have been blocked for viewing in India without any prior notice to me or any other person in the organization," VideoLAN president and lead VLC developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf wrote in a September 30 letter to India's Department of Telecommunications. Cicada, a China-based hacker group, was using VLC Media Player to spread malware as part of a Chinese government-backed cyberattack campaign.VideoLAN is threatening to sue India's government, saying it has received no explanation for why the VLC website has been blocked by Indian ISPs for the past six months. The Indian telecom companies have not clarified why they have stopped the VideoLAN website, although some suspect that it could be due to a misunderstanding of an earlier security alert about which cybersecurity experts reported in April. ![]() Despite this, the URL, which allows users to download VLC was blocked by the DoT without any prior notice, or an opportunity of hearing to VideoLAN. Union of India (2015) 5 SCC 1, government officers responsible for issuing a blocking order are required to: (i) make all reasonable efforts to identify the originator or intermediary hosting the information to be blocked, (ii) issue a notice to such person, (iii) provide a hearing to such person before the concerned authority, and (iv) provide a copy of a reasoned blocking order to the person concerned prior to the hearing. The letter says:Īs per Rule 8 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009 ('Blocking Rules') and the ruling of the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v. VideoLAN claims in the notice that the way Indian ministries have enforced the website restriction violates their own local laws. ![]()
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