Updated An academic journal has retracted two articles after finding that the authors used unlicensed software.
As noted by Retraction Watch, Elsevier’s Ain Shams Engineering Journal has retracted two articles examining dam failures after complaints from Flow Science, the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based maker of a computational fluid dynamics application called FLOW-3D.
“After an editorial investigation following a complaint from the software distributor, the authors admitted that the use of professional software, the FLOW-3D program for the results published in the article, took place without a license from the developer,” said a note from the magazine’s editor-in-chief explains.
“One of the conditions for submitting an article for publication is that the article does not infringe any intellectual property rights of any person or entity and that use of any software is 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 several violations that can lead to the removal of an article. In addition to copyright violations, defamation and privacy violations, these also include significant mistakes, ethical violations and conflicts of interest. The unspecific use of generative AI can also lead to disengagement.
Copyright and academia have been on uneasy terms since the general public began using the Internet. Perhaps the best-known example of this conflict was the 2013 death of activist Aaron Swartz following his arrest and prosecution for uploading journal articles from the academic paper library service JSTOR to MIT’s network. Swartz’s actions were discussed extensively in articles such as one entitled, “Should Copyright in Academic Works Be Abolished?” The debate over 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 if the articles are taxpayer-funded. Meanwhile, the existence and survival of sites like Sci-Hub, which distributes copyrighted content despite legal challenges, underlines the limitations of legal and technical gatekeepers.
Numerous academic articles have pondered the problem. Last year, Faith Majekolagbe, an assistant professor at the University of Alberta’s School of Law and a faculty fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, argued that a secondary publication right should be established to ensure that researchers can do their own distribute work without permission from their publisher.
“Copyright law is organized around providing economic incentives to facilitate the continued production and distribution of works of authorship for social progress and development,” Majekolagbe wrote.
“It rests on the assumption that the motivation of authors is the same for all authors – economic – and that the existing panoply of exclusive rights benefits authors of all types of work. However, copyright 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 images further complicates matters. For example, the website Plagiarism Today has noted that icons from a tool called BioRender are not licensed for reuse, putting numerous studies that include such images at risk of potential claims.
Flow Science did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to a study published in the journal Nature, more than 10,000 research articles were retracted in 2023 – a new record.
The research is behind a paywall. ®
Updated to add at 1405 UTC, Nov 14
In a statement to The registry After this story was filed, an Elsevier spokesperson said: “It is each magazine’s responsibility to check that 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. this by compiling 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 maintain the highest standards of accuracy and ethics in our publications to protect the quality and integrity of research.”
