@ehsteve You are getting confused. There is a big difference between licensing and copyright.

When I write some code I can keep copyright on it, and then licence it however I like, under a BSD licence or give my copyright to someone else. Many people can own the copyright of parts of SunPy as long as they all agree to licence it under the BSD licence.

See this page for me info: http://eu.conecta.it/paper/Open_source_copyright_law.html