"all rights reserved" and GPL

Hello. In the license header of a source file being licensed under the
GPL, there must be a copyright notice. Sometimes I see the usage of "All
rights reserved" in that notice:

// Copyright (C) 2007, Company X. All rights reserved.

1) Is the usage of "All rights reserved" appropriate when a file is
being licensed under the GPL, or in fact under whatever license?

2) What is the purpose of its usage?

3) If it is that the licensor wants to say: "Any rights I have not
explicitly given you, you do not have"?

4) If so, would it not be necessary, strictly speaking, to say so, i.e.
"All rights regarding this work, unless explicitly granted to the
licensee, are reserved by the licensor"? "All rights reserved" seems to
be inappropriate, if not incorrect, when in fact all rights are *not*
reserved.

5) Is it *advisable* to use such a terminology in a copyright statement
in a file licensed under the GPL?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Shriramana Sharma.


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On 6/28/07, Shriramana Sharma <samjnaa DeleteThis @gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello. In the license header of a source file being licensed under the
> GPL, there must be a copyright notice. Sometimes I see the usage of "All
> rights reserved" in that notice:
>
> // Copyright (C) 2007, Company X. All rights reserved.
>
> 1) Is the usage of "All rights reserved" appropriate when a file is
> being licensed under the GPL, or in fact under whatever license?
>
> 2) What is the purpose of its usage?
>
> 3) If it is that the licensor wants to say: "Any rights I have not
> explicitly given you, you do not have"?
>
> 4) If so, would it not be necessary, strictly speaking, to say so, i.e.
> "All rights regarding this work, unless explicitly granted to the
> licensee, are reserved by the licensor"? "All rights reserved" seems to
> be inappropriate, if not incorrect, when in fact all rights are *not*
> reserved.
>
> 5) Is it *advisable* to use such a terminology in a copyright statement
> in a file licensed under the GPL?


"The requirement to add a notice became obsolete and essentially
deprecated on August 23, 2000, as every country that was a member of
the Buenos Aires Convention (which is the only copyright treaty
requiring this notice to be used) is also a member of the Berne
Convention which requires protection be granted without any formality
of notice of copyright."

All rights reserved has pretty much no legal effect now.


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