All Rights Reserved
The phrase "All rights reserved" is a copyright formality which indicates that the holder of copyright has reserved, or holds for its own use, all the rights provided under copyright laws. These include the right to publish the work, to make derivative works of it, to distribute it, to make profit from it, to license a number of these rights to other people, and to forbid these uses by any non-authorized people, thus being entitled to take legal action against infringement.
The phrase originated in the 1910 Buenos Aires Copyright Convention signed between the United States and most South and Middle American countries. Article 3 of the Convention granted copyright in all signatory countries to a work registered in any signatory country, as long as a statement "that indicates the reservation of the property right" appeared in the work. The phrase "all rights reserved" was not specified in the text, but met this requirement.
Other copyright treaties like the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC) 1952 and Berne Convention did not require this formality. The UCC adopted the © symbol as an indicator of protection. The Berne Convention rejected formalities altogether in Article 4 of the 1908 revision. However, because not all Buenos Aires signatories were members of Berne or the UCC, and in particular the United States did not join UCC until 1955, a publisher in a Buenos Aires signatory seeking to protect a work in the greatest number of countries between 1910 and 1952 would use both the phrase "all rights reserved" and the copyright symbol.
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. Today all members of the Buenos Aires Copyright Convention are also member of the Berne Convention. The Berne Convention states that unless explicitly stated otherwise, all rights are reserved. Even though the phrase "all rights reserved" has no legal significance today, it is still used with almost all copyright notices. The only practical function is that of a warning that the author realizes he has a copyright and he really means to keep it.
