“A graduate student was threatened with a lawsuit and retraction of a published paper unless she paid thousands of dollars and signed a retroactive license for having used a measure without paying the fee.” This example was one of the motivating factors for a recent Medical Care commentary by Dr. Ron Hays and colleagues. The commentary exposes the current debate about what copyright protections are sensible versus extreme when it comes to previously developed measures in research. Copyright, as noted by the authors, “exists automatically;” [pdf] it can be waived but only through an active process to put the work in the public domain.
While many authors do allow their work to be used for free without written permission and there are valid reasons for restricting permissions, the core issue is the lack of transparency. Especially because restrictions on the use of measures may change over time, it can be quite difficult to tell whether or not a measure is currently restricted. This lack of clarity stems from two sources: changes in copyright law and the sales of copyrights to corporate entities. The example of the Mini-Mental State Examination is a strong warning, primarily because of its impact on patient care. It is up to you, the user, to do a thorough search and determine all of the use restrictions or run the risk of being subject to varying penalties. A measure that was once freely available might not be today.
The Creative Commons is one way to make permissions clearer. There are several online resources for checking measures and finding alternatives–much easier than having to buy books of instruments like I did in graduate school. The Measurement Instrument Database for the Social Sciences is an excellent online tool that is searchable and contains information on more than 500 measures. The included measures generally have references, explanation, psychometrics, and often even a PDF link to the questions. Another idea is to check the scope of surveys funded by the federal and state governments (also see here), often the questionnaires are available to use for free, and have the added benefit of allowing comparisons to state and national samples. Data archives, such ICPSR and Harvard Dataverse, can also be a great resource. In healthcare, research firms, such as RAND and RTI, even make some measures available for free. More specialized and paywall guarded sites, such as PsychTESTS, can also be helpful for researchers with institutional subscriptions.
At the very least, I plan to be very careful in my research to make sure that any new measures can be made readily available to researchers. I hope you will join me!
Jess Williams