In March 2010 i received an email from V Festival who didn't want me to carry on development of an iPhone app i had been working on, in these emails legal action was mentioned in an effort to scare me, this is my story.

I personally don't think it is an unfair assumption to believe that most big corporations use questionable methods to make the little people, who threaten their profits, go away. Methods that i'm sure everyone back in reality would see as bullying, a way of throwing around their "big boy" name to make you stop what you're doing.

You would have to do something rather special to get yourself into a position where a big company would want to stop you from doing something they thought could damage them financially, something quite sizeable to even be noticed by these people.

Apparently i've managed to get myself into a real pickle of a situation with Virgin Media because of an iPhone app i created called iFestApp something that, at the time, seemed innocent enough but apparently threatened a few pennies in V Festivals pocket.

So let me tell a little story about a nice young developer who just wanted to share his love for a music festival with like-minded people through the "geeky" means of iPhone App Development.

Points To Keep In Mind

• I'm an independent developer
• I didn't create the app to make money, i did it out of love for V Festival
• I'm not trying to be cocky, poke the fire or piss anyone off, i'm just telling my story.
• All emails came from a personal account of someone working at V Festival

In The Beginning

So in 2009 I thought i was at a period in my life where i could consider myself responsible and decided to attend my first music festival. In the UK many music festivals exist, some smaller than others, but i would consider one of the bigger festivals V Festival (by Virgin Media) and their lineup for 2009 tempted me even more.

Back in 2009 there was no iPhone app for V Festival, it was just a dream i had, so in 2010 (present) i decided i would learn a new skill and develop my own app to share with people attending the festival who were equally annoyed at the lack of app in 2009. I made my intentions very public by announcing on forums, my website, Twitter and Facebook what i planned for the app all in an effort to build interest.

The internet is accessible globally and obviously social networks are for sharing things with other people so my message would spread if i put it out there, even as far as V Festival themselves who took a very different interest in the app i was planning.

The Communication

So throughout February 2010 i planned the app i was going to create and even created some mockups to post around the web to generate interest, in early March the app was well under development because the V Festival lineup had been revealed to the world.

Around mid-March i received an email from someone, for the purpose of this article we will call them Bob, who had heard about my planned iPhone app and he was "very interested" in talking to me about the application.

This wasn't the first email i had received from someone who was interested in my application, normally it is someone who wants to know a little more information or just express their joy at the fact i'm creating the app, and the email from Bob looked the same.

I sent back the typical reply stating i would be happy to chat further about the app but it would need to be strictly via email as i simply don't have time to chat on the phone to everyone who emails me, nor do i want random people knowing my number.

After a week a got a reply from Bob who informed me he was working with V Festival, the email wasn't the usual email, in fact it is the complete opposite of what i expected. Bob's email explained that…

"The development of unofficial apps can't be stopped however all will have to be approved by apple prior to deploying for sale…"

… a fact i'm well aware of as is anyone who develops for the iPhone simply because Apple have a very controversial approval process. The email went on to warn me about the use of copyrighted material…

"I would be very cautious if you are planning to use any assets found on vfestival.com or any other website containing copyrighted content within your app."

Another point i'm aware of as someone who creates websites for a living, but a very valid point from Bob in case it had slipped my mind.

What came next from the email was quite a shock to me and actually set me back in my seat a little simply because what seemed like a friendly email was turning into a "warning"

"It would be a great shame for all of your efforts to go to waste or for you to be under the threat of being sued for all monies you may have raised as a result of using copyrighted assets within your app or to promote and sell your app to the general public. V Festival are aware of your intentions and will follow any further progress you may make to ensure their assets are not used unlawfully."

Where this had come from wasn't clear because the app, at this stage, hadn't been released and was still under development, the only things that had been released were the very basic mockups of the iPhone app.

A Little More Harsh

So a few more emails went backwards and forwards each one sounding a little more "threatening" than the last, after a while i had had enough and decided it was time to have a chat on the phone.

The emails seems to go from "do the app but be careful" to a much different "do it and be sued" and being sued is not something i wanted. After discussing with some people it turns out there could be no ground for suing as the app contained nothing copyrighted (only a logo or two which were swiftly removed) and i wasn't pretending to be an official app.

My Conclusion

Why exactly would V Festival decide to pick on me? well i will leave that for you to speculate but i'm almost certain it consists mainly of V Festival wanting to make sure no one else created something they hadn't.

What i see is V Festival wanting to stop the little man from sharing his love of the festival by creating a tool that allows other festival lovers to keep updated. At no point did V Festival have any grounds to mention suing anyone as the app contained nothing illegal, copyrighted or brand infringing.

In the modern age a company as big as Virgin Media should embrace social media and embrace the fans that attend their festivals, after all it is these communities who give money to V Festival every year.

What's Next?

Well the iPhone Application has already been released and is available for download and the app flew through the verification process enforced by Apple and is available for all the festival fans to download.

I hope Virgin Media will stop threatening people, the little guy (me) isn't going to make any money from the application and there is nothing to stop virgin media from bringing out their own V Festival app officially which will certainly get more exposure than my app and exceed the number of downloads in the process.

I wrote this article not to make myself look big, or to piss off anyone, i wrote this to inform everyone that big companies will bully the small people, whether it be independent developers like my self or small businesses, just so they can control the market. In this case V Festival didn't sue me, and they didn't stop me from creating the app, all they did was make me more determined and "mad as hell".

I encourage everyone to spread this article, repost it anywhere you like, the more people who read it the better my point gets across. Thanks for reading.

Photo Credit

Photo Credit: adeb@nd on Flickr.

Keywords: vfest, v festival, v festival email, v festival treats, ifestapp, ifestival app, v festival app, virgin media