October 8, 2015

Dear Editor:

Last week ROFFS™ had been notified that we used a photo of a bluefin tuna school in the ROFFS™ Fishy Times that apparently was a copy protected photo. This “unauthorized use” was an inadvertent use and we immediately removed the image from our website. The photo is owned by Getty Images of Seattle, WA. We are uncertain of the source as we believe we received the photo from someone on Facebook, or Twitter, or email and assumed it was a public domain image. The photo was not marked with an indication that it was protected material. The photo was used to announce our need for information related to bluefin tuna observations in the Gulf of Mexico. The photo was used in conjunction with a project to collect data for scientific and educational purposes as part of our NASA highly migratory species and climate change grant. It was only used for this purpose.

We are very sensitive about copyrights and protection as our business depends on this. We made an error and have corrected it.

Sincerely,

Mitchell A. Roffer, Ph.D.

President