Terms of Service

ChessGOATs is operated by [COMPANY NAME] OÜ, registered in Estonia under registry code [REGISTRY CODE], registered office [REGISTERED ADDRESS], Estonia. “We”, “us” and “ChessGOATs” mean that company. “You” means the person holding the account.

You must be at least 13 years old. If you are under 18, you may only use the service with the consent of a parent or guardian, who agrees to these terms on your behalf and is responsible for your use of it.

One person, one account. You are responsible for keeping your password secure and for everything done through your account. Tell us promptly if you think someone else has access to it.

Give us accurate information when you register, and keep it current. We may suspend or close accounts that are used to break these terms, that impersonate someone else, or that are created with details we cannot verify.

You can close your account at any time from your profile. Closing it does not automatically refund a subscription — see section 5.

• Use engine assistance in games against other people, or otherwise cheat. Fair play is the point of a chess platform; accounts found cheating are closed without refund.
• Harass, abuse, threaten or impersonate anyone, or post content that is unlawful, hateful, or sexual content involving minors.
• Share your account, resell access, or redistribute course material you have purchased. Courses are licensed to you personally.
• Scrape the platform, hammer our API, circumvent plan limits, or attempt to access accounts, files or data that are not yours.
• Upload malware, or files you do not have the right to distribute.
• Reverse engineer the platform or the GOATbase desktop application, except where that right cannot lawfully be excluded.

We may remove content or suspend access where we reasonably believe these terms have been broken. Where it is proportionate, we will tell you why and give you a chance to respond.

Paid plans are billed in advance, monthly or annually, through Stripe. Subscriptions renew automatically at the then-current price until you cancel. You can cancel any time from your account; cancellation stops the next renewal and you keep access until the end of the period you have paid for.

Your right to withdraw. As a consumer in the EU you normally have 14 days to withdraw from a distance contract. Because access to digital content begins immediately, by starting a subscription or opening purchased course content you ask us to begin performance at once and acknowledge that you lose that withdrawal right for content already delivered. Where you have not accessed the content, the 14-day right stands — email us.

GOATcoins are prepaid credit for use on the platform. They are not money, do not accrue interest, cannot be exchanged for cash, and are not transferable between accounts.

We may change prices. Existing subscribers get at least 30 days' notice before a change affects their renewal, and can cancel before it takes effect.

Games, analyses, repertoires, files, forum posts and anything else you create or upload remain yours. We claim no ownership.

You grant us a limited licence to host, store, back up, transmit and display your content — only as far as needed to operate the service for you, and to show it to people you deliberately share it with. That licence ends when you delete the content or your account, apart from backup copies that age out on their normal cycle.

You are responsible for having the right to upload what you upload. Do not put other people's copyrighted material into GOATbase and share it publicly.

The platform, its design, code, branding and the courses we produce or license are owned by us or our licensors. Buying a course gives you a personal, non-transferable licence to watch and study it for as long as your access lasts. It does not let you download, redistribute, screen publicly, or use it to teach paid lessons of your own.

Where coaches use ChessGOATs to teach, the coaching relationship is between the coach and the student. We provide the tools; we do not employ coaches, vet their qualifications, or supervise lessons, and we are not party to whatever they agree with their students.

Coaches working with students under 18 are responsible for obtaining parental consent and for complying with any child-protection rules that apply where they operate.

We work to keep ChessGOATs running, but we do not promise uninterrupted service. We may take it down for maintenance, and features may change, be added or be withdrawn. If we discontinue a paid feature materially and you are on a paid plan, we will refund the unused portion of your subscription.

The service is provided as it is. To the extent the law allows, we exclude implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.

Where we are liable to you, our total liability in any 12-month period is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in that period, or €100. We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, lost profits, or lost data beyond what our backups hold.

Nothing here limits liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited. If you are a consumer, your statutory rights are not affected by these terms.

You may stop using ChessGOATs and close your account at any time. We may suspend or close your account if you materially break these terms, or if we are legally required to.

If we close your account for a reason that is not your fault, we refund the unused portion of any subscription. If we close it because you broke these terms, we do not.

After closure you can ask us for an export of your content for 30 days. After that it is deleted, as described in the Privacy Policy.

We may update these terms. For material changes we will give notice by email or on the site at least 30 days before they take effect. Continuing to use ChessGOATs after that means you accept the new terms; if you do not, close your account and we will refund the unused part of your current period.

These terms are governed by the laws of Estonia, and the courts of Estonia have jurisdiction over disputes arising from them.

If you are a consumer resident in the EU, this does not deprive you of the protection of mandatory consumer law in your own country, and you may also bring proceedings there. The European Commission's online dispute resolution platform is available at ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr.

If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest stays in force. Our not enforcing something straight away does not mean we have given up the right to. You may not transfer your rights under these terms; we may transfer ours if the business is sold, on notice to you.

These terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between us about the service.