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VLC media player banned in India

indiatoday.in

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Re: VLC media player banned in India

#161

Post by webmobdev »

jbk wrote: post #45

President of VideoLAN here: we got banned since a few months, and we don’t know why. (According to my stats, it is since the 13 February 2022) . We’ve asked the Indian government and we got no answer. We probably did not ask the right place though. I wish I knew how to ask properly. The weirdest is that some ISP are blocking it and some are not. So why is that the case? Are some ISP not listening to the government? V…

Indian here - you will have to go to the indian court to get your site unblocked. (Talking to our government will be like talking to a brick wall). As other's have pointed out, I too believe your site is just collateral damage in the fight against piracy. Now that the indian film industry is feeling the pinch of piracy because of the growth of high speed internet in India, and streaming platforms too are being aggressive against pirate sites (who they see as competitors), many torrent websites and pirate streaming platforms are now banned in India. The usual process for this is that the right holder can go to court and provide a list of URL's and ask for it to be blocked. The court then orders it to be blocked after conducting their enquiry (which often doesn't have any representation from the other party as most of these sites are foreign and many obviously will choose not to defend themselves in court unless they are not doing anything illegal).

I speculate that in your case one of these people saw a link or reference to VLC in one of these pirate sites (many pirate sites do openly recommend VLC if someone complains they are unable to play their video file), and figured they'd include your site too (either out of ignorance, or deliberate malice to create hurdles for non-techies to watch the videos).

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#162

Post by dominotw »

jbk wrote: post #45

President of VideoLAN here: we got banned since a few months, and we don’t know why. (According to my stats, it is since the 13 February 2022) . We’ve asked the Indian government and we got no answer. We probably did not ask the right place though. I wish I knew how to ask properly. The weirdest is that some ISP are blocking it and some are not. So why is that the case? Are some ISP not listening to the government? V…

> The weirdest is that some ISP are blocking it and some are not. So why is that the case?

Because India. Laws are merely guidelines here.

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#163

Post by captain-coding »

jbk wrote: post #45

President of VideoLAN here: we got banned since a few months, and we don’t know why. (According to my stats, it is since the 13 February 2022) . We’ve asked the Indian government and we got no answer. We probably did not ask the right place though. I wish I knew how to ask properly. The weirdest is that some ISP are blocking it and some are not. So why is that the case? Are some ISP not listening to the government? V…

No post body was provided.

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#164

Post by PoignardAzur »

Soids wrote: post #123
butterNaN wrote: post #64

It is cute to see non-indians trying to guess the reason. We were like you once. It is an exercise in futility. Our government is run by monkeys. They are stubbornly uneducated about science and technology, at the same time pretending to know everything about it. How does our government take decisions? My best guess is they consult a successful team of astrologers.

+1. Around 2005/6 there was some news story that some minister was asking why long distance phone call taxes were dropping and someone explained that corporates were using Skype now. His response was that they are still required to pay the taxes. facepalm Recently, in an op/ed article about something different the journalist said "India is a first world country with a third world government." More on topic: I didn't…

> More on topic: I didn't know about VLC until an Indian coworker introduced it to me.

That's an odd remark. VLC is open source software, of course you're going to learn about it through word of mouth.

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#165

Post by mekster »

jbk wrote: post #158
mekster wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the project got this large, I'd say it's safer to use an actual business address before too late than a private one as any weird people may target your parents' house for no good reason.

Wayyy tooo late for that.

Not sure if your parents even feel comfortable?

It's never too late than never?

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#166

Post by TheNewsIsHere »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #118
jbk wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol. I actually checked with them :)

A fun conversation to imagine. "How's your health? The family? Have you gotten any mail about my project being a Chinese cyber weapon? No? Well, that's confusing."

Clearly VideoLAN isn’t trying hard enough!

/s, in jest, in case that isn’t clear haha

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#168

Post by ksec »

jbk wrote: post #45

President of VideoLAN here: we got banned since a few months, and we don’t know why. (According to my stats, it is since the 13 February 2022) . We’ve asked the Indian government and we got no answer. We probably did not ask the right place though. I wish I knew how to ask properly. The weirdest is that some ISP are blocking it and some are not. So why is that the case? Are some ISP not listening to the government? V…

>VLC and VideoLAN are quite apolitical

While both VLC and VideoLAN were started and mostly based in Europe ( France ) . It still takes a lot of courage in today's tech world to say you are apolitical. Which is partly forbidden because apolitical stance in itself is political, or so I have been told.

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#169

Post by pseudostem »

OmarAssadi wrote: post #156
pseudostem wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hold a Class B ISP license. We get letters (not emails, physical letters)from Department of Telecommunication asking us to block http://www.example.com We don't bother with blocking http://example.com or its https cousin. In this case we have not received any letter for VLC

Do they not also ever request blocks on particular IP addresses? A lot of collateral damage happened due to blocking whole ranges from AWS and such when Russia was trying to ban Telegram.

We haven't received request for blocking blocks of IPs till date. Maybe it happens with upstream ISPs or peering exchanges, I'm unsure.

In the past, we have received requests for single IP addresses

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#170

Post by m-p-3 »

hutzlibu wrote: post #79
jbk wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect, Cicada deployed a custom version of VLC which was hacked. Use VLC from our website and you’ll be safe.

But maybe the indian government did not care to differentiate?

Or lack the competence to take a good decision.
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