[zhng]

The legal department, not the programmer, probably dictates that the copyright headers must be in each and every file.

[deathanatos]

I know this ruins any potential value of the intellectual property but…

…why not just put a mention in the top-level license that all empty (0 byte long) __init__.py files are in the public domain?

(Yes, yes, it's less confusing to license the entire thing under one license. But attempting to assert copyright on an empty file is humorous.)