Price: $1.99 Score: 8/10 By Anna Papachristos
*update 15/10/09: Pokedex’s commercialized use of Bulbapedia’s servers may in fact be illegal – refer to comments
Back in the day, there were only 151 Pokémon, Ash, Misty and Brock were best pals and Team Rocket was a force to be reckoned with. But the times change, Pokémon evolve and well… they also seem to multiply. Now, thanks to Studio Bebop, Pokémon enthusiasts can access the stats to all 493 creatures in an instant with the Pokedex App 2.1.
Connected to Bulbapedia, Pokedex App 2.1 allows users to access all the information they could possibly need to know about their favorite Pokémon. Pokedex App 2.1’s main menu provides links to browse Pokémon, access your recently viewed Pokémon and visit Studio Bebop’s web site.
By tapping on browse, users can then search through the entire list of Pokémon alphabetically by name, numerically, or by type (i.e. Bug, Electric, Fire). Users can also type in the name of the specific Pokémon they are looking for.
Once you’ve picked a Pokémon, you are directed to a page that shows you a picture of the creature, as well as their type, species, ability, exp. at 100, EV yield, egg groups and egg cycles, as well as their evolved forms. The tabs at the bottom allow users to view the Pokémon’s base stats, their strengths and weaknesses against other Pokémon types, and the various moves they can learn as they gain experience.
Ideal for children and children-at-heart, Pokedex App 2.1 is the comprehensive go-to guide for all the vital information Pokémon trainers need to become a successful Pokémon master!
Pokedex 2.1 requires iPhone OS 2.0 or later and is compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch.
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October 15th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
This tool steals data from Bulbapedia’s server and infringes Bulbapedia’s CC license. You gonna buy something that will probably not last for long.
October 15th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
There is a potential lawsuit in the making right here. This app is literally stealing information from Bulbapedia without their permission AND using THEIR servers while it does it. I would suggest that people do NOT get this because their money will likely be wasted when this app inevitably get removed.
October 15th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Let it be known to those at Studio Bepop that we here at Bulbapedia are not okay with this commercial use of a non-commercial website, which violates legal contracts. I warn those interested in buying to not do so, as this app will not be working properly. That’s right Studio Bepop. Bulbapedia is sabotaging you. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.
October 15th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
The above comment is correct. Bulbapedia is currently in action to have this app removed or reduced to freeware. If possible, adjust your review to mention this. The app unlawfully uses Bulbapedia’s servers, without the owner’s permissions, and has put a huge strain on the site itself.
October 15th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Agrees, how hard is it to create the database themselves… You are charing for this, use the money for future updates rather than relying on the volunteers at Bulbapedia.
It’s just rude not asking for permission.
October 15th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
hey, stop stealing other people’s works.
October 15th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Not only is it illegal in regards to bulbapedia, im sure Nintendo and The Pokemon Company would have something to say about someone making profit from their work/creations, which IS copyrighted and patented down to every individual pokemons name. Studio bebop should give up, before the big guns get involved (ie, NINTENDO!)
October 15th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Let us see: The software is illegal, pretty much completely useless, and is doing massive damage to Bulbapedia (adverts funding the site can’t be viewed and the site may have to go down as a result, and the strain on the servers is making the problem even worse). I don’t expect this’ll last too long.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:51 am
Sue! Sue! Sue! Sue!
Bulbapedia, just inform CC already.. or sue them
October 16th, 2009 at 1:18 am
This app essentially hotlinks pages from Bulbapedia. That puts a heavy stress upon the servers without the revenue gained from the advertisements, and that alone is just plain disrespectful.
However, more importantly, it’s unlawful, because it’s charging for something that is by legal contract under the Creative Commons and free for usage. It’s making a profit off of the work members of the wiki do without any intention of getting money for their work.
I do not believe Nintendo would get themselves involved in this case, because it’s not violating their copyrights, but violation of the Creative Commons license means this won’t last long before Bulbapedia shuts this done. So my advice would be not to buy it at all.
Instead, just use the internet through the iPhone to ACTUALLY GO to Bulbapedia.
October 16th, 2009 at 2:13 am
Disgusting. I hope studiobebop removes the app asap. If not I hope they lose everything the own in a lawsuit because it is unfair what they are doing to Bulbapedia.
October 16th, 2009 at 2:38 am
Due to the manner in which this app gathers information from Bulbapedia, the app does break (i.e., shows no information) when Bulbapedia updates its articles.
As you may have gathered from the above comments, Bulbapedia takes content copyright seriously.
As a result, you might want to wait a while before you buy this; so long as it remains payware and does not attribute Bulbapedia within the app, Bulbapedia can and will be breaking the formatting of this app on a regular basis. (until the app is either re-released as freeware under the correct license, or removed from the iPhone store.)
In the meantime, I would suggest that iPhone users in search of Pokémon data simply direct their iPhone’s web browser directly to Bulbapedia, rather than causing our server unnecessary load by accessing the data through this app.
Geo – a.k.a. Jioruji Derako
October 16th, 2009 at 2:59 am
This is worse than an itouch fake
why should people at bulbapedia work for free for you guys to steal it and make money off it
ps all of you going to buy it just go to bulbapedia its free and legal
October 16th, 2009 at 6:08 am
I second what everyone else said. How shameful.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:07 am
Studio Bebop? You make me sick. You’re stealing from a website that doesn’t charge its users a dime for using it, and making money off of it. You won’t have that money for long, you’ll either get sued out of it, or you’ll have to reimburse the people who bought it because your app will be taken down.
You’re eating bandwidth, stealing what someone has taken time to write, and basically saying that there isn’t anything they can do about it.
People who are reading this? If you buy this app, you will have proven your idiocy.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:22 am
all this thing is doing is stealing bandwidth and hard work from other people at bulbapedia. :/
it’s not even that useful.
October 16th, 2009 at 8:28 am
Studio Bebop needs to be shut down for stealing information and bandwidth like this. I can’t believe the gall they have on their site acting as if they have permission to do this.
October 16th, 2009 at 9:48 am
O.K, I don’t think this is illegal. It’s just infomation. Bulbapedia doesn’t need to be credited. And if people wanna speend two dollars to get this app, let them.
October 16th, 2009 at 9:51 am
BULL SHIZZAH
This is illegal. they better get sued. them mofos. bulbapedia made it!!! not themm… how can the bebo ppl make 60 cents per each app sold.
YES the people who sell the app make 30%. if the app is returned, they have to pay apple 70% of wat was refunded. bull SHUZZA. i cant stand cheaters.
October 16th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Studio Bebop – making a profit from theft of server resources and intellectual property!
But this is just par for the course for them. Their previous “Products” include an application that also steals resources from OneManga while commercializing copyrighted works, and a Facebook spam robot.
What a despicable group of amateurs. I wouldn’t be surprised if “Studio Bebop” consisted of a single teenager who thinks he can make it big by stealing the work of others.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Yo Studio Bebop I’m really happy for you and I’mma let you finish, but the Shaker App had the best copyright infringement of all time. OF ALL TIME!
October 16th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
This is ridiculous.
All of you are acting like idiots over nothing. This isn’t violating copyrights, this isn’t going to destroy the servers, and goddamnit, NONE OF YOU SEEM TO UNDERSTAND COPYRIGHT LAW.
October 16th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
If this is brought to court, I’m sure that the case will just be thrown out.
October 16th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Like others said, you stole from Bulbapedia without giving any credit, and are selling the product WITH the content, which is against the licensing. You stole from the community for your own greedy selves. Bulbapedia hosts the content, WE as a community make it, that gives you no right to steal it and make a profit off of it!
October 16th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
The real kicker? This guy is 19 years old, just graduated High School. Yeah… he’s done pretty well so far in his adult life. Got an entire fandom yelling at him.
October 17th, 2009 at 1:00 am
Your brain seems to fail to comprehend the copyright laws son. All you posted was a stupid comment without knowing anything about this situation and just felt like giving your two cents by POSTING IN CAPS BECAUSE YOU THINK YOU’RE A COOL KID! Please refrain from trying to sound educated and act like YOU know the law, when you obviously you don’t.
-.??s?????c.
October 17th, 2009 at 5:26 am
”
If this is brought to court, I’m sure that the case will just be thrown out.”
Heh, most likely.
“You’re suing him over what?… Pokeymon? Get the hell out!”
October 17th, 2009 at 6:29 am
Those that say this doesn’t violate copyright:
CC licenses forbid derivative works.
This is a derivate work.
*rolls eyes*
October 18th, 2009 at 1:50 am
Sue Studio Bebop, Bulbapedia, Sue Studio Bebop, Bulbapedia….
October 18th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
WOOOOOOOOOO CC LICENSES
October 18th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Might as well just use Safari and browse to Bulbapedia’s website. -_- Duhz.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
I can’t believe I was conned out of $1.99 for an
app being sold illegally! Had I know this before
I wouldn’t have wasted my time. Studio Bebop,
I hope you’re sued for everything you could
possible be worth!
October 19th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
In defense of Studio Bebop:
I believe that they (think that they) are right in ripping off the entire Bulbapedia community of their effort, time and passion for Pokemon in order to satisfy his/their own greed.
Also, overloading entire servers and web hosts, for example of a website filled with a whole library of manga fansubs which are done by groups of people willing to dedicate their time to do so in order for other fans to enjoy is entirely justifiable and understandable when the underlying reason is to profit from the hard work of both communities of fans (or so i believe that Studio Bebop thinks).
So please do not flame Studio Bebop any further. (Just put the CC licenses into power and bring Studio Bebop the hell down.)
October 20th, 2009 at 3:23 am
This app is illegal.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:47 am
This has gone too far, I certainly hope no one ends up getting sued or having legal action taken against them over this (if the threats of Bulpapedia fans represent the arm of the law anyway, which I highly doubt). There’s no need for all that trouble, why can’t it just be resolved? Surely keeping the app and updating it whenever Bulbapedia changes their system (not to mention the fact it may* be illegal) can’t be worth the profits it brings in.
*I say ‘may’ because the license is open to interpretation. It could be argued that the app isn’t illegal at all, for the reasons specified by the creator. It most likely would be unsuccessful, but still possible.
October 20th, 2009 at 6:38 am
Having examined bulbapedia’s license, I can categorically say that this app IS illegal.
Bulbapedia has a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.5 License (The data of this license can be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/legalcode). Under this license, the content is free providing that all of the critera are met. In short, this is hoe the app violates the license…
1) The app doesn’t credit Bulbapedia.
2) The app is not free.
3) The app doesn’t use the Creative Commons license.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
“Bobby”, “Studio Bebop’s BIGGEST FAN”, “Pokemon”, and whoever elso supports Studio Bebop, you guys are daft by supporting this daft Studio Bebop. They just rip off of Bulbapedia and all the work we have put into making this site the best Pokemon Encyclopedia and just take the money. Additionally, they don’t even really credit Bulbapedia. I second, or third, or whatever number we are on, everyone that said something like this.
October 21st, 2009 at 4:41 am
cool reading comprehension, BulbapediaSupporter579
October 21st, 2009 at 10:57 am
This is like selling someone the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge.
October 21st, 2009 at 12:25 pm
@herpderp:
Cool fail story, bro.
Everyone that supports StudioBebop, please see what Looneyman said.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:14 am
is it dead now? Studio Bebop’s website is down.
November 2nd, 2009 at 7:07 pm
I think free access to the information on Bulbapedia is just as important as the next guy. Correct me if I’m wrong though but aren’t there people profiting off the information on Bulbpedia already, namely those who advertise on Bulbapedia’s pages? They probably wouldn’t have any advertisers if the companies who are advertising there weren’t profiting from the increased traffic they get because of the traffic the information on Bulbapedia brings in. I don’t know where the servers that host Bulbapedia are but if they are owned by a company which profits from renting out space on their servers and bandwidth for hosting then that would also seem to be someone else profiting from the information on Bulbapedia. Also, the Application isn’t technically a derivative work of the information or pages currently present on Bulbapedia but rather another portal by which to access the free data. Are they going to take action against Google or Yahoo! because they profit off of searches that provide a portal by which to access the Bulbapedia website and the information which it contains or companies that sell the computers people use as “portals” to access the website? By they’re definition of “derivitive work” it sure seems like they should… It is also important to remember that the App, at least in its current form links directly to Bulbapedia and this should do nothing but create even more traffic at they’re website making them more money off they’re advertisements which they could use to improve Bulbapedia. They should be thanking these guys not being selfish… What Bulbapedia is doing is clearly and glaringly obviously not in the spirit of the protection the Creative Commons liscense is meant to provide. The liscense is supposed to protect against people restricting the afformentioned information only to those who can pay thus limiting who does and doesn’t have access to the information. This however is, again, quite obviously not the case with this App. Even if StudioBebop were theoretically in violation of the “letter of the law” so to speak, which they obviously are not, what Bulbapedia is doing, has done, and/or might continue or start to do, seems to be far out of line with the “spirit of the law.” Finally, I should mention that I just linked to this very page from the StudioBebop website quite literally five minutes ago and so I know first hand and for a fact the website is, at least at this moment, perfectly fine…
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:17 am
Fink, Bulbapedia charge people to advertise on the site. That’s how they pay for the upkeep of the site. Also, you’ve misinterpreted the Creative commons lisence. Have a very good look at it.
November 8th, 2009 at 2:50 am
http://www.pddoc.com/copyright/not_copyrightable.htm
Actually, if you read through the link I posted above, it is clear that Bublapedia is made of facts and not creatively made material, and as such, it can not be protected or copyrighted under a creative commons license.
November 16th, 2009 at 10:09 am
I’m not sure how Bublapedia is made of facts, since in my world, there areno such things as Pokemon, only a cartoon show with fictional characters :-)
November 20th, 2009 at 6:38 am
I feel as though the two companies should act like adults and come to an agreement. Yes, i side whole heartedly with Bulbapedia and its contrubutors, studio bebop is against the law here. But the people hurt by the argument are the pokefans everywhere who would LOVE this app. (myself included)
I’m sure theres an easy solution to this problem, but both sides are too stuborn in fighting each other to realize that they should work together.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Hello. For those who don’t know me, I’m Archaic, the webmaster of Bulbagarden and the Bulbapedia.
I would like to note for the record that lawyers for Nintendo and The Pokémon Company themselves have sent out cease and desist notices to all these groups who had created applications referencing Bulbapedia. This includes, sadly, groups which had released their applications for FREE, in a manner which was fully compliant with our CC license.
Yes, that’s right, FREE. There’s plenty of ways for people to access us on mobile devices (http://wikizap.mobi/ being the most popular currently, and one that is entirely in line with our license), and the fact that Studio Bebop was trying to charge people for it when other aps were free was quite ridiculous.
To answer a few points made by others here…
RB Golbat, you’re correct that facts cannot be copyrighted. However, Bulbapedia is not “made of facts”. It is made of “creative descriptions of facts”, as it were. The specific words we use to describe facts, the formatting and styling of these pages, and so on and so forth.
Fink, if you’ll read through my emails to Studio Bebop (first post here – http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/showthread.php?t=46076), you’ll see how we called them a derivative work.
Also, I should note here that this application specifically removed the advertisements from pages. In effect, they were leaching our bandwidth.
Speaking of bandwidth…as for their website’s status, it was down until the 1st of November. We believe it likely that all the negative press they got all over the net led to them going over bandwidth. How ironic.
As for advertising…the ap didn’t really give proper acknowledgement of who exactly we were, and that Bulbapedia was separate to them. We’re not in a position where we really need advertising in the fandom to begin with, but the omission of that proper level of acknowledgement was part of their violation of our license.
December 30th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Pikachewwwwwwwwzzzzz!
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:24 am
I just really want a pokedex app. I have the idex and I don’t think they even sell that anymore. I wish I would have bought this when it was out. I just really want to have a pokedex like this. I’m not saying I agree with the illegal stuff but I think bulbapedia really needs to put out a app. It would profit them I’m sure
January 28th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
I agree the act was wrongful and shameful but there should be an app available to those whom are without an avalaible wifi connection, bulbapedia i wish that you would perhaps pursue this in the correct lawful way. i love the website but sometimes i need the information and the capabillities of wifi limit me. please consider it at the very least
January 30th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Sadly Kevin, this isn’t something that we’re able to do. Not because we’re unwilling, we actually had an official app up in association with another developer who rebranded their app and released it for free, but because Nintendo came down like a ton of bricks on *all* iPhone apps related to Pokemon, including the Dex’s. The developer we were working with (and other developers we had waiting in the wings on other projects) all got C&D’s, so there wasn’t anything we could do.
March 28th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
I’m not too familiar with iPhone/iTouch workings, but is it possible to view locally saved pages on the iPhone or do so with some other app? If so, Bulbapedia could make some pages of proper iPhone size/format and allow people one-time download (maybe through torrent) to view.
If there is a way to view pages locally, then the only hitch is getting a way keep pages updated. Too bad there are no such things as ‘updatable’ torrents.
April 23rd, 2010 at 11:24 am
Well it’s a good app…
I bought it well and truly before I knew that they were stealing data from Bulbapedia.
So sorry Bulbapedia I’m a massive fan and visit your website daily.
I hope you guys win!
May 9th, 2010 at 11:44 am
Why doesn’t Bulbapedia just make their own app then? Use the lawsuit money to fund the development. This is obviously an amazing idea even if it is illegal.
May 29th, 2010 at 10:39 am
Joe, read Archaic’s most recent comment.