Academic papers yanked after authors found to have used unlicensed software

Dam, the consequences

Updated An academic journal has retracted two papers because it determined their authors used unlicensed software.

As noted by Retraction Watch, Elsevier's Ain Shams Engineering Journal withdrew two papers exploring dam failures after complaints from Flow Science, the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based maker of a computational fluid dynamics application called FLOW-3D.

"Following an editorial investigation as a result of a complaint from the software distributor, the authors admitted that the use of professional software, FLOW-3D program for the results published in the article, was made without a license from the developer," a note from the journal's editor-in-chief explains.

"One of the conditions of submission of a paper for publication is that the article does not violate any intellectual property rights of any person or entity and that the use of any software is made under a license or permission from the software owner."

Elsevier, based in the Netherlands, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The academic publishing giant lists various infractions that can lead to the removal of a paper. Beyond copyright infringement, libel, and privacy violations, these include significant errors, ethical violations, and conflicts of interest. The use of generative AI, not specifically mentioned, can also lead to a retraction.

Copyright and academia have been on uneasy terms since the general public began using the internet. Perhaps the highest profile example of this conflict was the death of activist Aaron Swartz in 2013 following his arrest and prosecution for uploading journal articles from academic paper library service JSTOR to MIT's network. Swartz’s actions were widely discussed in papers like one titled, "Should Copyright of Academic Works be Abolished?" Debate on that question continues to this day.

Academics and open access advocates argue for greater access to information while academic publishers prefer to offer only paid access to research – even when papers were funded by taxpayers. Meanwhile, the existence and persistence of sites like Sci-Hub, which distributes copyrighted content despite legal challenges, underscores the limitations of legal and technical gatekeeping.

Numerous academic papers have pondered the problem. In a paper last year, Faith Majekolagbe, assistant professor at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law and a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, argued that a secondary publishing right should be established to ensure that researchers themselves can distribute their work without permission from their publisher.

"Copyright law is organized around the provision of economic incentives to facilitate the continued production and distribution of authorial works for societal progress and development," Majekolagbe wrote.

"It rests on the assumption that authorial motivation is the same for all authors – economic – and that the existing panoply of exclusive rights work favorably for authors of every kind of work. However, copyright law systematically fails to address and protect the motivation of research authors, namely, the widespread dissemination of their works at the earliest possible opportunity," she argues.

Requiring copyright compliance for the tools used to produce academic research and associated imagery further complicates the matter. The website Plagiarism Today, for example, has noted that icons from a tool called BioRender are not licensed for reuse, which puts numerous studies including such images at risk of potential claims.

Flow Science did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In 2023, according to a study published in the journal Nature, more than 10,000 research papers were retracted – a new record.

The study is behind a paywall. ®

Updated to add at 1405 UTC, November 14

In a statement provided to The Register after this story was filed, an Elsevier spokesperson said: "It is each journal's responsibility to check if software licenses are valid. Our mission at Elsevier is to help researchers and healthcare professionals advance science and improve health outcomes for the benefit of society. We do this by curating and disseminating quality knowledge and facilitating insights and critical decision-making. Everything we do is underpinned by the quality of the scientific and medical information we publish. We uphold the highest standards of rigor and ethics in our publishing to protect the quality and integrity of research."