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iPhone Application infringes on Bulbapedia license

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Re: IPhone Application infringes on Bulbapedia license: Developers charge for free in

Brandon Smith said:
When someone purchases the Pokedex App, they are not purchasing access to Bulbapedia, nor are they purchasing any of the information hosted on Bulbapedia. Instead, they are purchasing a tool that streamlines and organizes the information one accesses from Bulbapedia, and presents it in a more refined, user-friendly fashion.

I love it when people that are being incriminated act desperate like this; he's obfuscating Bulbapedia, clearly.
But, at least he did admit to Studio Bebop using Bulbapedia's information.
 
well, not that stuff but no one cares about that.
I like the Trivia. :/

In anycase, I had assumed this application was A)Free, B)Offline and C) A program version of Bulbapedia/Serebii/Pokedex Books. When I saw an add for it, I was interested. Now I know otherwise, I don't see why anyone would pay for it. It uses bandwidth that you pay for, can be accessed through a web browser legitamently and actualy hurts the legit form.

Saying this, a program form(Laptop)/app(iWhatever)/'picdex'(PSP) of the Pokedex would be suprisingly useful, more than say, running to your computer every 10 mins, or if your without net for whatever reason.
 
... Has anyone even actually bothered contacting Apple about this or is everyone just content to sit here and bitch about it?

Well, maybe not necessarily either. I'm absolutely sure there is a lot happening behind the regular users' scenes, though I don't know if it's the time to contact Apple yet. The administrative users here know what they're doing, at least I'll believe that and let them do the rest.

Btw, regarding the post above, at least I know my Pokédex pretty well, but I'd be in heavens if they made a S60 version of RNG Reporter :p
 
Re: IPhone Application infringes on Bulbapedia license: Developers charge for free in

No one is saying it's copyright infringement, they're saying that they're violating Bulbapedia's Creative Commons license.

The license is just the terms of the copyright. If they aren't infringing on Bulbapedia's copyright, they can't be violating the license. You might have a case though, since they're displaying Bulpapedia pages without the ads, but that puts them in the same legal status as Adblock, and Adblock's still around so I don't know. I do know that they're completely within their rights to display the pages that are stored on your server, that makes it just another commercial browser, one that can only display a specific site, so it's not a very good one. I'm not 100% sure though, I'm no lawyer, but I do know a thing or two about copyright.
 
... Has anyone even actually bothered contacting Apple about this or is everyone just content to sit here and bitch about it?

As of yet, no. Partially because trying to find a contact for Apple that's relevant to this issue is proving to be difficult, and partially because we've been trying to play by all the legal niceties first so that they can't possibly claim they weren't aware of the infringement further on down the track.
 
Re: IPhone Application infringes on Bulbapedia license: Developers charge for free in

Quoting from my original post in the Bulbapedia forum for ease of reference. This should answer your questions about how exactly they're infringing Jeff.

http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/showpost.php?p=1121300&postcount=1
-------------------------------------

This is something that came to our attention at the start of this month. We've tried playing nice, and they don't seem to be interested, so now we're releasing this information to the wider community. I'm sure you're all as unhappy about this as I am.

http://studiobebop.net
Application is "Pokedex App" on the iTunes App Store.

My email exchange with them below.

Archaic - October 4th (Australian local time)
Hello,

My name is Liam Pomfret, a.k.a. "Archaic", webmaster of Bulbagarden and the Bulbapedia. I am writing to inform you that your application, while a welcome and worthwhile addition to the iPhone of any Pokémon fan, is currently in violation of Bulbapedia's Creative Commons license (viewable at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/), specifically in regards to the non-commercial portion of that license. If you would be interested in continuing your application as a non-commercial free project, our editorial team on Bulbapedia would be interested in working together with you to help continue to improve the application for the Pokémon fan community. Under such an arrangement, we would be prepared to allow the application to be branded as Bulbapedia's official application for the iPhone (with potential eventual expansion to other wiki's in the Encyclopaediae Pokemonis network - http://www.encyclopaediae-pokemonis.org/), together with recognition, linkbacks, etc, from Bulbapedia and Bulbagarden.

Kind regards,
Liam Pomfret

Studio Bebop - October 6th (US local time)
Good morning Liam,

I'm afraid you are mistaken in your claim that the Pokedex App is violating your creative commons license. When someone purchases the Pokedex App, they are not purchasing access to Bulbapedia, nor are they purchasing any of the information hosted on Bulbapedia. Instead, they are purchasing a tool that streamlines and organizes the information one accesses from Bulbapedia, and presents it in a more refined, user-friendly fashion. Studio Bebop is NOT charging or collecting a royalty for your work, but is merely providing an additional method by which people can access the Bulbapedia database.

So for the moment, the Pokedex App will remain a commercial application. If you have any more questions or concerns, please let me know.

Best regards,

Brandon Smith

Archaic - October 7th (Australian local time)
Hello Brandon,

I'm afraid to inform you that your interpretation of the Creative Commons license is incorrect.

Following are relevant sections from the legal code of our license agreement, with several important sections highlighted.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/legalcode

1. b) "Derivative Work" means a work based upon the Work or upon the Work and other pre-existing works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which the Work may be recast, transformed, or adapted, except that a work that constitutes a Collective Work will not be considered a Derivative Work for the purpose of this License. For the avoidance of doubt, where the Work is a musical composition or sound recording, the synchronization of the Work in timed-relation with a moving image ("synching") will be considered a Derivative Work for the purpose of this License.

3. License Grant. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual (for the duration of the applicable copyright) license to exercise the rights in the Work as stated below:

a. to reproduce the Work, to incorporate the Work into one or more Collective Works, and to reproduce the Work as incorporated in the Collective Works;
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In summary
As you have noted, your application "streamlines and organizes" the information accessed from Bulbapedia, and presents it in a fashion different to what is displayed should someone simply be accessing our web page.
Your parsing and display of the material from Bulbapedia in an altered format constitutes a Derivative work.
A derivative work is only permitted under the conditions of section 4. Restrictions of our license.
You are currently in violation of 4.c, in that you recieve private monetary compensation, and thus 4.a in that your distribution is in a manner inconsistent with the terms of the license agreement.
You may also further be in violation of portions of 4.b or 4.d, which I am currently in process of confirming, and have highlighted in the above for your convenience.

If you wish to continue this project in a non-commercial fashion, we are still willing to work together with you on it in the interests of the Pokemon fandom, however if you do not intend to do so then I must formally request that you cease and desist your distribution of this application.

Regards,
Liam Pomfret
Webmaster, Bulbagarden.net

Archaic - October 14th (Australian local time)
Brandon,

Given your published intent to release a new version of your Pokedex application, and your updating of its description in the App Store, I can only assume that you either failed to see my previous email, outlining exactly how your application is in fact in violation of our usage license, or that you've chosen to ignore it. For now, I've chosen to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the former. I must again request that you either make this a free application in full compliance with terms 4a, 4b, 4c and 4d of our license. If you are unwilling or unable to do so, you are hearby requested to cease and desist all distribution of the application immediately. If you do not respond to this email within a reasonable timeframe, we will be contacting Apple to have your application removed from the iPhone App Store. At our discretion, we may also seek to have the code of this application released as open source under the Creative Commons license, and for refunds to be issued to users who have downloaded the infringing application.

Sincerely,
Liam Pomfret
Webmaster, Bulbagarden.net
 
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Saying this, a program form(Laptop)/app(iWhatever)/'picdex'(PSP) of the Pokedex would be suprisingly useful, more than say, running to your computer every 10 mins, or if your without net for whatever reason.

Does your "program form" still use the website? Cause you'd still need internet.
 
I was just about to buy this as I thought it would have been useful. I won't now. I support Bulbapedia.
 
the iPhone App Review said:
*update 15/10/09: Pokedex’s commercialized use of Bulbapedia’s servers may in fact be illegal – refer to comments

'nuff said.

...no, wait, that's not 'nuff said.
Perhaps it bears mentioning that users should not contact Apple about this themselves, since spamming them with "STUDIO BEBOP SUCKS" might prove to be counter-productive.
Additionally, we should consider the templating update to be one epic troll; as such, you guys probably don't need to troll any more than we already have. A simple "buyer beware: this app will probably break if you buy it" note on review articles should be more than enough, assuming nobdy else has already commented on the review.

Geo - a.k.a. Jioruji Derako
 
Apple is usually pretty quick to respond, judging for various blogs and reports on tech sites. So if it comes down to contacting Apple, I don't see them leaving the app up, especially in light of a violation that is pretty clear, and the developer's apparent intent not to change a thing.
 
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Re: IPhone Application infringes on Bulbapedia license: Developers charge for free in

It would be my desire that this Brandon would realize that they are still treading on Bulbapedia's territory, purely. It matters not to the authority of Bulbapedia if he was trying to have a positive impact or not on this website.
 
Hey hey, let's not blame me completely for the app-breaking resort.
 
i think nintendo and the pokemon company should know about this. Since they are making a profit. The pokemon names, techniques, artwork..etc are copyrighted.
 
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Hey hey, let's not blame me completely for the app-breaking resort.

I was the first one here to suggest sabotage. So I agree with you.

I'm glad they listened to us. Looks like we're gonna win this one.
 
Re: IPhone Application infringes on Bulbapedia license: Developers charge for free in

This just makes me mad more than anything. *sighs*
 
For those who think they don't take content from BP:

"Also, Bulbapedia changed the way they list base stats for Pokemon last night. As a result, version 2.1 of the Pokedex App is no longer working."

Scroll down to Sept. 26
 
Re: IPhone Application infringes on Bulbapedia license: Developers charge for free in

For those who think they don't take content from BP:

"Also, Bulbapedia changed the way they list base stats for Pokemon last night. As a result, version 2.1 of the Pokedex App is no longer working."

Scroll down to Sept. 26
 
Re: IPhone Application infringes on Bulbapedia license: Developers charge for free in

Two words: D**k Move.
 
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