VLC Media Player sends legal notice to DoT, MeitY seeking reasons for blockade

In the legal notice dated September 30, Jean-Baptiste Kempf, the president and lead VLC developer of VideoLan has said that the uniform resource locator (URL) to access the VideoLan and VLC site as well as download the open-source media player had been, since March 2022 “blocked for viewing in India without any prior notice” to him or any other person at VideoLan.

“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 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,” Kempf said in his legal notice, addressed to DoT secretary K Rajaraman and Rajendra Kumar, additional secretary in the IT ministry.

Kempf has in his legal notice, also sought the reasons for which the URL has been barred for viewing in India and an opportunity to defend his case “through a virtual hearing”.

VideoLan would, Kempf has said in his notice, initiate legal action against the government to protect the rights it had been guaranteed under the Indian constitution.

ET had in August reported that VideoLan and VLC had claimed that they had tried to approach the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to understand why their app as well as the website had been banned but had not received any responses.

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In response to ET’s queries sent then, Felix Paul Kühne, a board member of VideoLan, said the organisation first noticed the ban on its app and website in India on February 13 this year, after it recorded “a drop of 10-15% of website impressions (worldwide numbers)”.

Kühne claimed that the company never received any communication from Indian authorities.

In a statement to ET then, Kempf had also sought to assuage concerns of VLC Media Player being unsafe.

“Also, please note that VLC is safe and the Chinese hacking part reported elsewhere is a misunderstanding of a security report. VLC is not controlled by the Chinese nor it is unsafe,” Kempf had then said.