# Terms of Service, BC Fish Map **Last updated: October 2, 2026** Please read these Terms of Service ("Terms") carefully before using the BC Fish Map application, website, or progressive web app (collectively, the "App"). By accessing or using the App, you agree to be bound by these Terms. **If you do not agree, do not use the App.** The App is operated by **33knots** ("we", "us", "our"). Contact: **thirtythreeknots@gmail.com**. --- ## 1. What the App is, and what it is not BC Fish Map is an **informational tool** that digests and presents publicly available recreational fishing regulations and related information for British Columbia, drawn from Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), the Province of British Columbia, and other public sources. **Its purpose is narrow:** to let you quickly refer to the regulations visually, and then **confirm what you see on the official government sites the App links to**. The App is a lookup aid on the way to the official sources, not a replacement for them. **The App is NOT the official fishing regulations.** It is a convenience aid only. It is **not** published, endorsed, or verified by DFO, the Province of British Columbia, or any government body. The official, legally binding regulations are published solely by those authorities, and they can change at any time, including in-season and on short notice, without the App reflecting the change. **The App does not provide legal advice.** Nothing in the App is a substitute for reading and following the official regulations. ## 2. You must verify before you fish The information in the App may be **incomplete, out of date, or incorrect**, and may contain errors, omissions, or data-processing mistakes. Regulations are complex, vary by exact location, species, gear, size, season, time of day, and emergency order, and are subject to closures that the App may not capture in time or at all. **You are solely responsible for knowing and complying with all applicable laws and regulations.** Before fishing, retaining any catch, or relying on any status the App shows, **you must independently confirm the current rules with the official sources**, including: - DFO Pacific Region recreational fishing pages () and **Fishery Notices** (); - the **BC Freshwater Fishing Regulations Synopsis** and the Province of BC (); and - any current variation orders, closures, and contamination (biotoxin) notices. A "verdict", colour, limit, season, or closure shown in the App is a **starting point for your own verification**, not a determination you may rely on. ## 3. No warranty THE APP AND ALL CONTENT ARE PROVIDED **"AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND**, express or implied, including without limitation any warranty of accuracy, completeness, currency, reliability, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the App will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or that any information is correct or current. ## 4. Assumption of risk and limitation of liability You use the App entirely **at your own risk**. Fishing and boating are inherently hazardous activities; the App is not a navigation, safety, or emergency tool, and depth, weather, tide, and chart information is approximate and must not be relied upon for navigation or safety of life. To the maximum extent permitted by law, **we are not liable for any loss, damage, fine, penalty, charge, prosecution, confiscation, injury, or harm of any kind** arising out of or related to your use of, or inability to use, the App, including any reliance on information it presents, any error or omission in that information, or any closure or restriction it failed to show. This includes direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, and punitive damages. Where liability cannot be excluded, it is limited to the amount you paid us for the App in the 12 months before the claim (which may be zero). **You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless** from any claim, penalty, or expense arising from your use of the App or your violation of any fishing regulation or law. ## 5. Acceptable use You agree not to misuse the App, including by: violating any law or regulation; scraping, overloading, or interfering with the App or its data sources; reverse-engineering except as permitted by law; or using the App to harm protected, at-risk, or out-of-season species. You are responsible for holding the correct, valid fishing licences and stamps (e.g. a tidal licence, a freshwater licence, a salmon Conservation Stamp, a Steelhead stamp) for what and where you fish. **This section restricts misuse of the App and its systems, not the use of data that is not ours to restrict.** The third-party-licensed data identified in Section 7 (OpenStreetMap contributors' data under the Open Database License, and Government of Canada, Province of British Columbia, and Canadian Hydrographic Service data under their own open licences) is not a "data source" of ours within the meaning of this section; you remain free to obtain, use, and share that specific data under its own licence, from its own source, regardless of this section. ## 6. Intellectual property and licence **What we own.** The App's software, source code, design, user interface, text, graphics, icons, and the way its information is selected, arranged, verified, and presented (the "Compilation") are the property of 33knots and are protected by Canadian copyright law, including copyright in compilations. The underlying fishing regulations are public government information and remain the property of their government sources; we claim no ownership of the regulations themselves, only of our software and our Compilation of them. **Your licence.** We grant you a personal, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the App and the information it presents for your own recreational, non-commercial use. That is the only right you receive. **Non-commercial use only.** You may not use the App or its data **for any commercial purpose**, and you may not **resell our data**. Commercial purposes include, without limitation: reselling, licensing, renting, or charging anyone for access to the App or its data; redistributing or republishing the App's data, in whole or in part, inside any other product, service, publication, dataset, or feed; and using the App or its data as a data source, input, or component of any product or service you offer, whether paid or free. For clarity: an individual (including someone who fishes for a living, such as a guide) reading the App on their own device as a personal reference is personal use and is fine; what is prohibited is exploiting the App or its data itself. **What you may not do.** Except with our prior written permission, you may not: - copy, mirror, republish, frame, or redistribute the App, its source code, or any substantial part of its data or Compilation; - bulk-download, scrape, or systematically extract the App's data, whether manually or with any automated tool, including via the App's offline cache; - use the App, its code, or its data to build, train, prompt, or instruct any software or AI system in order to reproduce the App or to offer a competing or derivative product or service; - remove, alter, or obscure any copyright notice, attribution, or provenance or watermark identifier; or - sell, resell, rent, sublicense, charge for access to, or otherwise commercially exploit the App or its data. **Watermarks.** Builds of the App and its data files carry provenance identifiers. Their presence in another product is evidence of copying, and we enforce our rights. **This section, including the watermark, is about our Compilation and our code, not about data we do not own.** Provenance identifiers mark only 33knots' own Compilation, including curated compilations built on open-government data; the underlying data always stays under its own licence, whatever we curate on top of it. The third-party data identified in Section 7 (OpenStreetMap contributors' data under the Open Database License (ODbL); Government of Canada and Province of British Columbia data under their Open Government Licences; Canadian Hydrographic Service NONNA bathymetric data under the CHS NONNA Licence and CHS tide/water-level data under the CHS Licence Agreement) is not owned by 33knots, is not licensed to you by these Terms, is never watermarked, and the copy/mirror/republish, bulk-download, and other restrictions above do not apply to it. OpenStreetMap data bundled in the App remains available to you under the Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0, on the same terms OpenStreetMap itself grants it; per ODbL §4.6, the extracted source files are `data/boat_launches.geojson`, `data/setback_zones.geojson`, `data/regulatory_closures.geojson` (mixed: 17 of its 28 features; offered whole rather than split) and `data/bc_coast.geojson` (a committed coastline file whose OpenStreetMap origin is not yet confirmed; offered on that presumption, see `docs/LICENCE-INVENTORY.json`), built or traced by `scripts/fetch_boat_launches.mjs`, `scripts/build_setback_geometry.mjs`, `scripts/geocode_regulatory_closures.mjs`/`scripts/build_regulatory_closures.mjs` and `scripts/licence_inventory.mjs` respectively (this project's source), and the underlying OpenStreetMap data is separately available at openstreetmap.org. `web/legal.html#odbl` lists the same files, the query or method used for each, and links to them. **Names.** "Catchable" and "BC Fish Map", and the App's logos, may not be used to name, brand, or promote any other product. **Termination.** Any breach of this section ends your licence immediately. Sections 3, 4, and this section survive termination. ## 7. Third-party data and attribution The App incorporates data and services from third parties under their own terms and licences, including: Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada, including data made available under the **Open Government Licence – Canada**; the Province of British Columbia, including data under the **Open Government Licence – British Columbia**; **OpenStreetMap contributors**, including boat launch and setback-zone data under the **Open Database License (ODbL)**; the Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS) and GEBCO bathymetry, including CHS tide and water-level data under the **CHS Licence Agreement**; the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC / GoFishBC; map tiles and imagery from Esri and its data providers; wind and marine forecasts and warnings from Environment and Climate Change Canada; and multi-day wind forecast data from **MET Norway**, licensed under **CC BY 4.0**. These providers are not responsible for the App, and your use of their data through the App is subject to their terms. We are not responsible for third-party content, services, or links. **None of this third-party data is owned by 33knots or licensed to you by these Terms.** It is not covered by the Compilation described in Section 6, it is never watermarked, and Section 6's no-copying, no-redistribution, and no-bulk-download restrictions and Section 5's no-scraping restriction do not apply to it, only to our own software and Compilation. OpenStreetMap data bundled in the App is available to you under the **Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0** on the same terms OpenStreetMap grants it to anyone; see Section 6 and `web/legal.html#odbl` for the source files, the query or method used for each, and a direct link to each one. **Canadian Hydrographic Service notice (seafloor relief, and future depth layers).** These layers are derived from CHS NONNA bathymetric data, are for non-navigational use only, and carry the notice the CHS NONNA Licence requires on any derived product: > This product was made by 33knots (Catchable) and contains intellectual property of the Canadian > Hydrographic Service (CHS) of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. > > This product does not meet the requirements of the *Navigation Safety Regulations, 2020* under the *Canada > Shipping Act, 2001*. Charts and publications issued by or on the authority of CHS must be used to meet the > requirements of those regulations. > > The copyright in the data are and remain the property of His Majesty the King in Right of Canada and shall > not be sold, licensed, leased, assigned or given to a third party. > > The incorporation of CHS data in this product does not constitute an endorsement or an approval of this > product by the Canadian Hydrographic Service, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or His Majesty the King > in Right of Canada. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence, Canada. See `web/legal.html#odbl` for the ODbL notice and offer rows. **GEBCO.** The App's legacy depth-band and sounding layers are the GEBCO 2020 Grid, served via OpenTopoData: public domain, commercial use allowed, "GEBCO 2020 Grid via OpenTopoData, not for navigation." **Canadian Hydrographic Service Tides notice.** Tide and water-level data comes from CHS's IWLS service under the CHS Licence Agreement (tides.gc.ca/en/licence-agreement), which bars use "for commercial purposes, for sale or profit", requires this notice on any product made from the data, and does not permit navigational use. The Agreement also requires destroying all copies of the data within 15 days of termination. > This product is not to be used for navigation. This product was made by or for 33knots (Catchable) > and contains intellectual property (Data) of the Canadian Hydrographic Service of the Department of > Fisheries and Oceans. The copyrights in the Data are and remain the property of His Majesty the King > in Right of Canada and shall not be sold, licensed, leased, assigned or given to a third party. The > incorporation of the Data in this product does not constitute an endorsement or an approval of this > product by the Canadian Hydrographic Service, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or His Majesty > the King in Right of Canada. The verbatim notice and its own anchor are also at `web/legal.html#chs-tides`, linked from the tide widget. **Every tide and water-level feature in the App is free and is never a Pro feature**, because this licence bars using the data "for commercial purposes, for sale or profit" (Sam's decision, docs/CHART-DECISIONS.md decision 7, 2026-09-25). See `docs/LICENCE-EXPOSURE.md` for background. **Not a nautical chart.** Depth, sounding, contour, and chart layers in the App are **not official nautical charts** and must never be used for navigation. Canadian law (the Charts and Nautical Publications Regulations, 1995, under the *Canada Shipping Act, 2001*) requires vessels to carry and use official charts and publications. The App does not satisfy that requirement. ## 8. Premium features, billing, and refunds **No paid features are offered today.** The App is entirely free right now, nothing in it can charge you, and no payment details are collected anywhere. The rest of this section takes effect only when paid ("Pro") features launch, and the purchase screen will show you the price and these terms before any charge is possible. **What Pro is.** Pro features are optional subscriptions that unlock premium layers and tools (for example premium bathymetry, closure push alerts, and offline packs). The core per-species verdict and safety information stay free and are never gated. **Before you pay, you will always see**, on the purchase screen itself: the exact price in Canadian dollars and whether tax is added, what the subscription includes, the subscription term and renewal behaviour, and how to cancel. After purchase we email you a receipt and a copy of the purchase terms. **Who processes payment.** We never see or store your card number. - **Web purchases** are processed by **Stripe** under its own terms and privacy policy. - **App Store / Google Play purchases** (when the App is distributed there) are processed by Apple or Google under their terms, and are managed, cancelled, and refunded through your store account. **Free trial.** If a trial is offered, it is one per account, requires sign-in, and **never charges you automatically**: no payment method is taken to start it, and when it ends the Pro features simply lock again until you choose to buy. **Renewal and cancellation.** Subscriptions renew at the end of their term unless cancelled. You can cancel at any time; cancellation takes effect at the end of the period already paid for, and you keep access until then. For web purchases we send a renewal reminder to your account email before each renewal charge. **Refunds.** For web purchases: a **full refund, no questions asked, within 7 days** of the first purchase or of any renewal charge: email **thirtythreeknots@gmail.com** from your account email. App-store purchases follow Apple's or Google's refund process. Nothing in this section limits any non-waivable right you have under the *Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act* (BC) or other applicable consumer law, including any cancellation rights that arise if required pre-purchase information or a copy of your contract was not provided. **Price changes.** A renewal price increase applies only after we have given you at least 30 days' notice by email or in the App, and you can cancel before it takes effect. ## 9. Changes We may modify the App or these Terms at any time. Material changes will be reflected by updating the "Last updated" date. Your continued use after a change means you accept the updated Terms. ## 10. Governing law These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of British Columbia and the federal laws of Canada applicable there, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. You agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of British Columbia, subject to any non-waivable consumer-protection rights you have where you live. ## 11. General **Severability.** If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full force. **Entire agreement.** These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any additional terms presented at the point of purchase, are the entire agreement between you and us about the App. **No waiver.** Our not enforcing a provision is not a waiver of it. **Assignment.** You may not assign these Terms. We may assign them to a successor of the App or of our business (for example, a corporation we incorporate to run it), and will reflect any change of operator here. --- > **Not legal advice.** This document is a good-faith template prepared for the App operator and is > **not formal legal advice**. Before charging for the App or relying on these Terms commercially, > have them reviewed by a lawyer qualified in British Columbia, and consider incorporation and errors- > and-omissions (E&O) insurance.