All rights reversed is a phrase that indicates a release of copyright or a copyleft licensing status. It is a pun on the common copyright disclaimer "All rights reserved", a formality originally required by the Buenos Aires Convention of 1910. "All Rights Reversed" (sometimes spelled rites) was used by author Gregory Hill to authorize the free reprinting of his Principia Discordia in the late 1960s. Hill's disclaimer was accompanied by the kosher "Ⓚ" (for kallisti) symbol, a play on ©, the copyright symbol.
In 1984/5 programmer Don Hopkins sent Richard Stallman a letter labeled "Copyleft—all rights reversed". Stallman chose the phrase to identify his free software method of distribution. It is often accompanied by a reversed version of the copyright symbol (see illustration).
"All Rights Reversed", its homonym, "All Rites Reversed", and/or the "Copyleft" symbol, are occasionally used among those who publish or produce media (or any other material that might normally be copyrighted) as a clever means of saying "This is not copyrighted. Please, do with it what you will." and encouraging the duplication and use of the "copy-lefted" material thereof.
The open source character Jenny Everywhere is released under an "All rights reversed" licence.
Famous quotes containing the words rights and/or reversed:
“At the Carter Center we work with victims of oppression, and we give support to human rights heroes.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“His reversed body gracefully curved, his brown legs hoisted like a Tarentine sail, his joined ankles tacking, Van gripped with splayed hands the brow of gravity, and moved to and fro, veering and sidestepping, opening his mouth the wrong way, and blinking in the odd bilboquet fashion peculiar to eyelids in his abnormal position. Even more extraordinary than the variety and velocity of the movements he made in imitation of animal hind legs was the effortlessness of his stance.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)