VLC Media Player Ban Lifts in India; MeitY Removes 9 Month Ban

• VLC Player download was banned in India in February this year.
• The company later sent a legal notice to the government asking why its service was banned.
• The Indian government is yet to release a statement on the VLC unban.

Brief Summary

There are dozens of media players that are of great use for users, especially in a country like India, where the tastes and preferences are so diverse that it is impossible to cater to each and everyone’s taste.

VLC Media Player is one the most prominent ones that is extremely popular in India but it has been going through a rough patch as of late after it was banned by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) around February 2022.

Even many users were disgruntled at the ban of such a huge multimedia player with millions of users downloading it every day, which is why things were going smoothly.

But once the ban was imposed, users were quite surprised that it happened in such a way, especially as the Central Government of India and the VideoLAN Project refused to divulge any information regarding the ban.

VLC has received legal support from the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) of India, which also highlighted the issue publicly so that everyone became aware of the issue.

Prior to the ban, VLC Media Player had received nearly 25 million downloads every year, or so it claims but the makers were shocked when the ban was imposed on the company throughout the country.

Now with the ban being lifted, the central government has yet to give any official statement on why it has done so but ever since the news spread, the downloads have started at a massive spree all over again.

VLC Media Player did not take things lying down as it soon sent a legal notice to the central government in October 2022 asking for an explanation and sought permission to put its case forward via virtual hearing, while also threatening to initiate legal proceedings if the government did not give a justification for the ban.

If recent reports are to be believed, VLC Media Player faced the countrywide ban as the government found ‘suspicious behavior’ as cybersecurity experts alleged that a renowned hacking organization in China called Cicada had hacked into VLC for distributing malware, prompting the government to ban it.

Conclusion

Given that the ban has now been lifted, VLC Media Player has apparently not just put forth their case excellently but has also proven its innocence and will be careful with its proceedings from now on so as to prevent any such thing from happening again.

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