Papers retracted for using a copyrighted questionnaire

In my recent article “The Importance of Free Software to Science” I mentioned some of the risks facing scientists who choose to use proprietary software. I recounted cases of published papers being retracted not because there was anything wrong with the science, but because the authors performed a calculation using commercial software that they didn’t have a license to use.

This week on the excellent Retraction Watch website we can read about more retractions imposed on authors as punishment for the use of unlicensed proprietary tools. However this time the tool wasn’t a piece of engineering software, but a brief questionnaire.

This sort of thing injects chaos into the scholarly record, impedes scientific progress, and can upend careers. Researchers need to be vigilant; to ensure that anything they use that they didn’t make themselves they have a clear legal right to use, and that copyright protections can be extended even to apparent trivialities.