Springer Nature removed two decades-old studies by physicist Max Planck, retracting papers published roughly 70 years ago. Science reports the takedowns look like the result of an automated integrity or copyright-detection process, with one paper flagged for a copyright violation even though the material appears to be in the public domain. An editor says they were not notified before the removals, and Springer Nature is still offering an empty PDF for purchase at $39.95 for at least one of the retracted items. The incident has prompted criticism and concrete calls for human oversight of publisher automation to prevent erasing historical scholarship and to correct metadata or copyright errors.
