it strikes me that Lessig’s Free Culture reads very much like an oral presentation: many call-backs to previous ideas, often worded in very similar ways, and especially many repeats of his central claims or meta-claims. cf. page 139: “my point is not that the derivative right is unjustified. My aim just now is much narrower: simply to make clear that this expansion is a significant change from the rights originally granted.” He goes out of his way to give people time to catch up with him. This probably plays *really* well in person (I’m going to watch that video any day now); in print it feels strangely over-patient. A little like my dad’s “shrink voice.” (He’s a psychologist.)

1——->|        5——->|

       2——->|        6——->|

              3——->|        etc

                     4——->|

Tagged: metatext, oral rhetorics, reading, written rhetorics