Copyright

[Louis Proyect]

"Finally the day we were bringing the proofs to the printer, Grove
consented to act as distributor. To pull a total solo trip, including
distribution, would have been neat, but such an effort would be doomed from
the start. We had tried it before and blew it. In fact, if anyone is
interested in 4,000 1969 Yippie calendars, they've got a deal. Even with a
distributor joining the fight, the battle will only begin when the books
come off the press. There is a saying that "Freedom of the press belongs to
those who own one." In past eras, this was probably the case, but now, high
speed methods of typesetting, offset printing and a host of other
developments have made substantial reductions in printing costs. Literally
anyone is free to print their own works. In even the most repressive
society imaginable, you can get away with some form of private publishing.
Because Amerika allows this, does not make it the democracy Jefferson
envisioned. Repressive tolerance is a real phenomenon. To talk of true
freedom of the press, we must talk of the availability of the channels of
communication that are designed to reach the entire population, or at least
that segment of the population that might participate in such a dialogue.
Freedom of the press belongs to those that own the distribution system.
Perhaps that has always been the case, but in a mass society where nearly
everyone is instantaneously plugged into a variety of national
communications systems, wide-spread dissemination of the information is the
crux of the matter. To make the claim that the right to print your own book
means freedom of the press is to completely misunderstand the nature of a
mass society. It is like making the claim that anyone with a pushcart can
challenge Safeway supermarkets, or that any child can grow up to be
president."

Abby Hoffman, "Steal This Book"

Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)