The Paragraph

“The Paragraph”, also called the Jenny Everywhere Paragraph or the Jenny Everywhere disclaimer, is the paragraph which must be included in any work featuring the character of Jenny Everywhere.

The Paragraph is similar to a statement of attribution in a Creative Commons attribution license, but instead of crediting Jenny's creators or copyright-holders, it simply encapsulates her open-source nature, serving to enshrine it so that no one may look upon a Jenny Everywhere story without being made aware of the fact that Jenny is an open-source character.

Various people on the Barbelith forum were agreed in a general way about the release conditions but the final form of the paragraph was written by Steven Wintle, who also drew the first sketches of the character. The definitive Paragraph reads:

The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.

—Steven Wintle

Corresponding variations, switching out "Jenny Everywhere" for the character name, also exist for Jenny Nowhere and Johnny Everywhere, among others. It is generally agreed that when using multiple characters in a single work, it is acceptable to write the Paragraph only once, for instance writing "The characters of Jenny Everywhere, Jenny Nowhere and Jenny Somewhere…" instead of "The character of Jenny Everywhere".

The Shifter Archive website further argued that as Jenny Nowhere and her ilk are extensions of the basic Jenny Everywhere concept, a story using Everywhere and already including the classic Paragraph needn't include further Paragraphs if it also uses Nowhere or Anywhere. This contention has never been tested in a legal context, although in any event, given the animating philosophy of Jenny Everywhere as a media movement, it is improbable that any formal misuse of the Paragraphs, if done in good faith, could result in actual litigation.