There is nothing new under the sun.
http://journalismethics.info/media_law/history_of_free_press.htm
Officials view the printing press as a device to be used in support for the monarch and other authorities. At the least, the press was to print material that was politically neutral and did not question the establishment. It was the king’s prerogative as to who would own and operate a printing press. Systems of censorship and press licensing were set up in an attempt to control the increasing flood of new books, broadsides and pamphlets since Gutenberg’s printing press in the mid-1500s.
Anyone who saw “The Lives of Others” would know that East Germany restricted ownership of typewriters.