Terms of Service and EULA

Fishing Codex is published and operated by FISHINGCODEX LIMITED, a New Zealand limited company. Apple, Google, and Stripe are not parties to these Terms except where their own terms apply to their services, store distribution, payment systems, or platform requirements.

You can use parts of the app offline without a signed-in account. Web marketplace purchases, free claims, subscriptions, lifetime access, angler onboarding, account deletion, and cloud sync require a Fishing Codex account.

You must be at least 13 to use the Services. Paid purchases require 18 or involvement of a parent/guardian. Angler registration is strictly 18+.

Use the same sign-in method across the app and web marketplace. Purchases, free claims, subscriptions, lifetime access, exports, and deletion attach to the account used at checkout or claim time.

You agree not to:

• Use the Services for illegal fishing, trespass, unsafe access, or evasion of local fishing rules.
• Reverse-engineer, scrape, copy, or republish another user's entry data, photos, notes, or coordinates outside the Services.
• Circumvent heatmap fuzzing, marketplace access controls, claim limits, subscription gating, payment flows, or refund/dispute systems.
• Upload adult or explicit material, stock/AI images presented as real catches, misrepresented location data, or listings in legally protected areas.
• Use the Services to harass, dox, threaten, or expose private land, cultural restrictions, or sensitive environmental locations.

You own the entries, notes, photos, catch records, reviews, and profile content you create, subject to rights you grant us to operate the Services. By saving, syncing, listing, or publishing content, you grant FCL a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, back up, process, display, and transmit that content as needed to provide the Services.

Angler listings are user-generated content. Buying, subscribing, purchasing lifetime access, or claiming a free listing gives you account access to the listed content according to the entitlement type. It does not transfer copyright, ownership of the angler's account, or the right to scrape, resell, repost, or publish exact coordinates elsewhere.

Marketplace listing pages may show photos, species/context, angler information, approximate region, and other public description. They must not be used as coordinate-reconstruction tools.

FCL does not hold or pool buyer funds. Stripe handles payment credentials, compliance checks, disputes, chargebacks, and angler payouts. Angler payout timing depends on Stripe, the angler's payout schedule, bank validity, KYC status, fraud/compliance holds, refunds, and disputes.

App Pro is a separate in-app subscription processed by Apple or Google. App Pro does not buy angler listings, and angler marketplace purchases do not include App Pro unless the app states otherwise.

• Free claims: temporary free access to an angler listing. Free claims use a small number of lifetime claim slots enforced per account and per device (currently 3, with bonus slots available through friend referral); each claim grants access for 5 days, and a used slot is not returned when the claim expires. An active App Pro subscription lifts these limits while it remains active. The app shows the current rule at the time of claim. Free claims are not purchases and are not included in data export.
• One-off paid entries: an angler-set one-time price for account access to a specific log entry. Access syncs to the Fishing Codex app after Stripe confirms payment.
• Angler subscriptions: recurring monthly or yearly access to that angler's subscription entries while the subscription remains active and paid.
• Angler lifetime access: a one-time purchase for ongoing account access to the angler's lifetime-access offering, subject to these Terms, account status, legal removals, refunds, disputes, and marketplace enforcement.
• App Pro: an optional Apple/Google in-app subscription for app features; it is separate from web marketplace angler access.

Free claims are intended as a limited trial path, not a way to build a permanent library of angler-owned entries. We may block, revoke, or rate-limit free claims if we detect abuse, device resets used to evade limits, multiple-account farming, scraping, or other behaviour that undermines angler rights.

Web marketplace subscriptions renew through Stripe unless cancelled before the renewal time. You can manage web marketplace subscriptions from fishingcodex.com/account. Cancellation stops future renewals; it does not refund the current period unless required by law. Access continues until the end of the paid period, then stops.

Access may also stop after payment failure, confirmed refund, successful dispute, chargeback, account deletion, account suspension, angler removal, legal takedown, or marketplace enforcement.

Where a refund, chargeback, payment reversal, or successful dispute occurs, the related entitlement may be revoked. The transaction may also create a clawback or negative balance against the angler's Stripe account or marketplace ledger.

App Pro refunds, if any, are handled by Apple or Google under their store policies and any non-excludable consumer rights. See the Refund Policy.

Anglers must accept the Angler Agreement, be 18+, connect a Stripe Standard account, comply with local fishing/access laws, publish only eligible verified entries, and remain responsible for their listings, taxes, buyer interactions, Stripe account, and payout details. FCL charges a 15% application fee on paid web marketplace transactions.

Data export covers permanently-owned data such as your account record, your own entries and catches, your own photo metadata, and permanent access records where applicable. It does not export angler-owned subscription entries or free-claimed entries.

Account deletion is full account deletion, not just deactivation. It is designed to satisfy Apple App Store Review Guideline 5.1.1(v). Deletion removes or anonymises account data, user-created content, purchases, claims, and entitlements except for limited records retained for legal, tax, chargeback, fraud, marketplace accounting, or payment-network obligations.

Nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts, or modifies any consumer guarantee, refund right, privacy right, or other right that cannot lawfully be excluded in your jurisdiction, including the NZ Consumer Guarantees Act 1993, the Australian Consumer Law, EU/UK consumer and privacy laws where applicable, and other mandatory local consumer protections.

To raise a legal-rights claim, email [email protected] with your account email, order or claim details, and a clear description of the issue.

Marketplace listings reflect an angler's personal historical knowledge. Fishing conditions, weather, tides, legal access, closures, safety, fish behaviour, and local rules can change. You are buying access to information, not a guaranteed catch, legal outcome, safe trip, or fishing result.

To the maximum extent permitted by law and subject to non-excludable rights, the Services are provided “as is”. FCL is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or lost-profit damages. Our aggregate liability is capped at the greater of NZD $100 or the amount you paid FCL directly in platform fees attributable to your transactions in the 12 months before the claim.

Fishing Codex does not guarantee that maps show marine reserves, protected areas, private property, rāhui, customary restrictions, seasonal closures, or regulatory boundaries. You are responsible for checking and obeying local rules before fishing or travelling to any location.

You may stop using the Services or delete your account at any time. We may suspend, restrict, remove content from, or terminate accounts that breach these Terms, breach law, create safety or legal risk, abuse payments/claims, scrape angler data, or undermine marketplace integrity.

Web marketplace payments are subject to Stripe's applicable terms, including Stripe's consumer, connected-account, and payment-processing terms. Apple and Google terms apply to app distribution, sign-in where applicable, and App Pro in-app purchases. Store subscriptions are managed through the relevant Apple or Google account, not through Stripe checkout.

The mobile app is licensed, not sold. FCL grants you a personal, non-transferable, revocable licence to install and use Fishing Codex on devices you own or control, only as allowed by these Terms, applicable app-store rules, and law. You must not copy, resell, sublicense, reverse-engineer, disassemble, attempt to derive source code from, interfere with, or modify the app except where applicable law expressly prohibits that restriction.

Apple and Google are not responsible for Fishing Codex support, marketplace content, angler listings, web checkout, or web marketplace refunds. Apple and its subsidiaries may enforce Apple-specific terms as third-party beneficiaries where required by Apple's Licensed Application End User License Agreement or App Store rules.

These Terms are governed by New Zealand law, without excluding any mandatory rights that apply where you live. Please email [email protected] first so we can try to resolve the issue. New Zealand users may bring eligible claims in the Disputes Tribunal. Other mandatory local dispute rights may also apply.

We may update these Terms when product behaviour, marketplace rules, payment flows, or legal requirements change. For material changes, we will provide notice where practical. Updated Terms take effect on the date stated in the notice or on the updated page.

Contact: [email protected] · FISHINGCODEX LIMITED (NZBN 9429053662774).