The Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has lifted the ban on the official website of the popular media player application VLC Media Player, which was introduced in February 2022.
As reported by TechCrunch (opens in a new tab), the announcement of the lifting of the ban did not come from the ministry, but from the New Delhi-based Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) advocacy group, which provided “legal support” to the creators of VLC, VideoLan.
The lifting of the ban could spell the end of the saga, although VideoLAN will no doubt continue its search for answers to the fiasco the company believes may have broken Indian law.
Reply to VLC ban in VideoLAN
It is not clear whether VideoLAN sawing a legal notice sent by the IFF last month demanding a response from the Indian government had any impact on the proceedings.
In it, VideoLAN stated that under India’s 2009 IT Blocking Rules, the government was legally required to state the reason for the ban. While the ban is no longer in effect, it is most likely still in effect.
As part of the notice, VideoLAN has requested a fair hearing to challenge the ban, and while this is no longer necessary, the company may still feel aggrieved and choose to pursue legal action.
Another bizarre consequence of the ban is that it seems to run counter to the Indian government’s promise to use open source software as part of its ongoing Digital India initiative.
The ban itself was superficial and easily circumvented by a VPNbecause it only affected the website where VLC is available, videolan.org (opens in a new tab).
However, VideoLAN president and lead developer of VLC, Jean-Baptiste Kempf, said earlier TechCrunch (opens in a new tab) that the ban by several Internet Service Providers (ISPs) hurt VLC’s reputation as well as new users, as they could be directed to websites hosting potentially infected versions of VLC.