VLC Media Player Ban Lifted
Earlier this year, famous media player VLC got banned by The Ministry of Electronics and IT in India. VideoLAN retaliated by filing a legal notice to seek clarity from the Indian IT and telecom ministries.
Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), an advocacy support group from Delhi, helped VideoLAN legally.
Announcing the victory, IFF tweeted, “@GoI_MeitY has decided to remove its ban on the website of VLC media player. IFF provided legal support to @videolan throughout this process.”
Later, the VideoLAN twitter handle thanked them and said, “Awesome work from @internetfreedom, if you are India, you should support them!”
Further, IFF said, “This ban was put into place without any prior notice and without giving VideoLAN the opportunity of a hearing, which went against the 2009 Blocking Rules and the law laid down by the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India. This was strange because VLC Media Player is an open-source software which is used by nearly 80 million Indians,” IFF was quoted as saying.”
South Asia, particularly India, is VLC media player’s biggest market. In fact, the VLC site saw a drop of 80 per cent in traffic from the market, per TechCrunch’s report.
“Most major ISPs (internet service providers) are banning the site, with diverse techniques,” VideoLAN president and lead developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf said.
