Funny, but not quite right. :) In this case, I think it can be reasonably argued that Stevens Media and others aren't actually assigning copyright, although the

Funny, but not quite right. :) In this case, I think it can be reasonably argued that Stevens Media and others aren't actually assigning copyright, although their verbal maneuvering would like you to think that they are: 7.2 Despite any such Copyright Assignment, Stephens Media shall retain (and is hereby granted by Righthaven) an exclusive license to Exploit the Stephens Media Assigned Copyrights for any lawful purpose whatsoever and Righthaven shall have no right or license to Exploit or participate in the receipt of royalties from the Exploitation of the Stephens Media Assigned Copyrights other than the right to proceeds in association with a Recovery. They're basically saying that Stevens Media is assigning copyright to Righthaven, but retains a license to do whatever they want with the content. So far, so good. The part that's tricky is: they're trying to constrain what Righthaven can do as the new copyright holder, ie. you own this, but you can't do anything that someone who would normally own a thing can do. In other words, it's a sham assignment.