"All rights reserved" in copyright notice

[neuhaus]

The copyright notices contain the phrase "All rights reserved."

I believe this to be an error. The sentence should be removed.

[petiepooo]

Paraphrased from "Internet and the Law" (https://books.google.com/books?id=Fo2a7YtU1GUC):

"The requirement to add the "all rights reserved" notice became essentially obsolete on August 23, 2000 when Nicaragua became the final member of the Buenos Aires Convention to also become a signatory to the Berne Convention. As of that date, every country that was a member of the Buenos Aires Convention (which is the only copyright treaty requiring this notice to be used) was also a member of Berne, which requires protection be granted without any formality of notice of copyright."

That said, I assume your complaint is that the copyright holder is not reserving any rights by releasing it under GPLv2. I don't believe that's true. I can, for example, write something, reserving all rights as the author, release it under GPLv2, and also, because I retain my rights, release it as a commercial product. I cannot take others' contributions and add them to the commercial version, however, without gaining permission from all other contributors.

There is a clear distinction between copyright and license. GPL is a license, even though it is most often referred to as "copyleft."

[neuhaus]

You are reserving the right to release the software also under another license, but you are not reserving all rights, am I correct?

[hyandell]

Whilst noting that this isn't legal advice :), pointing out the following:

Is it common to put All Rights Reserved, before subsequently granting rights?
** Searching GitHub: For large corporations it appears to be common.

Does it mean the software isn't under Apache License 2.0?
** We fully intend that the terms of the Apache License 2.0 apply to this software.

[neuhaus]

Just because other people are doing it doesn't mean it's correct. As others have pointed out, the phrase is obsolete.

Von unterwegs

Am 03.07.2015 um 10:04 schrieb Henri Yandell notifications@github.com:

Whilst noting that this isn't legal advice :), pointing out the following:

Is it common to put All Rights Reserved, before subsequently granting rights?
** Searching GitHub: For large corporations it appears to be common.

Does it mean the software isn't under Apache License 2.0?
** We fully intend that the terms of the Apache License 2.0 apply to this software.

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