And here’s a good bit about the spread of the printing press in Europe:

The supplantation of hand copied manuscripts with printed works was not received with unanimous encomium. Not only did the papal court contemplate making printing presses an industry requiring a licence from the Catholic Church (an idea rejected in the end), but as early as in the 15th century some nobles refused to have printed books in their libraries to sully their valuable handcopied manuscripts. Similar resistance was later encountered in much of the Islamic world, where calligraphic traditions were extremely important, and also in the Far East.

In England though, there was in fact a time period where the Crown required licenses for printing presses. Check out my post on the origin of copyright. Also, these quotes below is really useful for the stuff I’m trying to tackle right now in my research:

Gutenberg’s findings not only allowed a much broader audience to read Martin Luther’s German translation of Bible, it also helped spread Luther’s other writings, greatly accelerating the pace of Protestant Reformation. They also led to the establishment of a community of scientists (previously scientists were mostly isolated) that could easily communicate their discoveries, bringing on the scientific revolution. Also, although early texts were printed in Latin, books were soon produced in common European vernacular, leading to the decline of the Latin language.

… In general, knowledge came closer to the hands of the people, since printed books could be sold for a fraction of the cost of illuminated manuscripts. There were also more copies of each book available, so that more people could discuss them. Within 50-60 years, the entire library of “classical” knowledge had been printed on the new presses (Eisenstein, 1969; 52). The spread of works also led to the creation of copies by other parties than the original author, leading to the formulation of copyright laws. Furthermore, as the books spread into the hands of the people, Latin was gradually replaced by the national languages. This development was one of the keys to the creation of modern nations.