Its the content, not the version! - Scholarly Communications @ Duke

"In many ways I wish it were true that each version had a distinct copyright, so that transfer of the rights in one version did not impact reuse of the earlier version.  That situation would make academic reuse much easier, and it would conform to a basic sense that most academics have that they still “own” something, even after they assign the copyright.  But that position is contrary to the very foundations of copyright law (and not just U.S. law), which vests rights in the content of expression, not in versions that represent artificial points in the process of composition or publication."