{"id":204888,"date":"2022-10-05T11:26:23","date_gmt":"2022-10-05T09:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=204888"},"modified":"2025-07-01T20:24:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T03:24:20","slug":"vlc-prepared-to-fight-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/vlc-prepared-to-fight-back\/","title":{"rendered":"VLC prepared to fight back against India\u2019s nationwide ban"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

VideoLAN, the creator of the free video player and editing utility, VLC media player<\/a>, has hit two Indian ministries with legal notices<\/strong> in response to the country\u2019s recent ban on its software. The company asserts that the ban was illegal and is in contravention of prior decisions made by the Supreme Court of India.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As VideoLAN asserted in a recent press release:<\/a> \u2018This was done without any prior notice, or affording VideoLAN an opportunity of hearing, which is contrary to the 2009 Blocking Rules and the law laid down by the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v Union of India<\/strong>.\u2019 VideoLAN is not on its own, however. India\u2019s Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) has joined forces with VideoLAN to try and get to the root of the block and appeal the ban.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India\u2019s Department of Telecommunications, the entity that instated the ban in the first place, has remained silent on the matter. In June 2022, the Internet Freedom Foundation submitted an application for the Right to Information. The application was issued to the DoT<\/strong>, which then pushed it through to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). Despite being the best equipped to level a meaningful response in the matter, MeitY issued the standard \u2018No information is available\u2019 retort.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"VLC<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Even though India has yet to respond to VideoLAN\u2019s correspondences, some people suspect that the reason behind the ban may have to do with Cicada. Cicada is a Chinese hacking group with links to the State. Cicada <\/strong>is mentioned in a Symantec report that details the group\u2019s use<\/strong> of VideoLAN IP, particularly the VLC media player, as a means of delivering remote control malware to unsuspecting devices across Asia, Europe, and North America. The report describes evidence of an \u2018advanced persistent threat group\u2019 that targets legal, religious, governmental, and civilian organizations in these territories.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though VideoLAN\u2019s recent actions don\u2019t guarantee that the company will take legal action, there is every chance that the situation could end up there in any case. Should India not be forthcoming with its cooperation in this matter, VideoLAN has warned that it \u2018will be entitled<\/strong> and compelled to initiate legal proceedings against you for failing to protect our rights.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VLC media player is an incredible utility and the solution to those weird visuals you used to get on Windows Media Player when trying to play \u2018unsupported content.\u2019 If you\u2019ve always wondered how to run multiple instances in VLC media player<\/a>, we\u2019ve got you covered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VideoLAN, the creator of the free video player and editing utility, VLC media player, has hit two Indian ministries with legal notices in response to the country\u2019s recent ban on its software. The company asserts that the ban was illegal and is in contravention of prior decisions made by the Supreme Court of India.\u00a0 As … Continue reading “VLC prepared to fight back against India\u2019s nationwide ban”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9222,"featured_media":204892,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":1},"categories":[1015],"tags":[2321],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-204888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-app-subdomain-redirectionvlc-media-player"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":323083,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204888\/revisions\/323083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204888"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=204888"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=204888"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=204888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}