The writer of the piece, I assume an employee of a newspaper misses a big point when he says that printing presses were controlled by the ‘elites’ of the time. Martin Luther’s 95 Theses were rapidly copied and sold by owners of the brand new printing press. Thus his ideas quickly spread throughout much of Germany.
The powers-that-were quickly cracked down on this dangerous liberty of spreading the word. Laws were passed requiring government approval for things printed. Not unlike the government wanting control of the internet today.
“We’ll tell you what to read and think”
Spot on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright
The origin of copyright law in most European countries lies in efforts by the church and governments to regulate and control the output of printers.[9] Before the invention of the printing press, a writing, once created, could only be physically multiplied by the highly laborious and error-prone process of manual copying by scribes.
An elaborate system of censorship and control over scribes did not exist, as scribes were scattered and worked on single manuscripts.[10]
Printing allowed for multiple exact copies of a work, leading to a more rapid and widespread circulation of ideas and information (see print culture).[9] In 1559 the Index Expurgatorius, or List of Prohibited Books, was issued for the first time.[10]