VideoLan, the not-for-profit firm that runs open source, cross-platform VLC Media Player has issued a legal notice to Department of Telecom (DoT) and IT (MeitY) over "quietly" blocking its platform. The free and open-source media player was silently banned in the country in February, and the provider describes it as a "violation of international obligations to protect free speech" in India.
“This 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 endorses the use of VLC as a part of its Digital India initiative, where it has expressed its intention to use open-source software for government applications. In fact, the Government of India also appears to use VLC Media Player’s icon and logo on its website promoting open source softwares,” Jean-Baptiste Kempf, President and Lead VLC Developer of VideoLan said in his legal notice, addressed to DoT secretary K Rajaraman and Rajendra Kumar, additional secretary in the IT ministry, as per a report by Economic Times.
The senior VLC VideoLan executive also added that the company also wants to know the reasons behind the banning of the URL from being viewed in India and be given the opportunity to defend "his case".
To recall, VLC Media Player app was banned in India and the central government has blocked access to VLC Media Player's website “www.videolan.org”. The VLC Media Player app has acknowledged the ban and said that the media player would only work on some Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
It should be noted that the government did not state a reason behind banning the VLC Media Player app. However, according to a report, VLC download from the official website may have been banned due to some cybersecurity experts saying that a hacker group from China named Cicada used VLC Media Player to deliver malware on systems as part of a cyberattack campaign sponsored by the Chinese government.