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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 1981)
Bootleg photocopying flourishes in USSR MOSCOW (AP) — If, as the saying goes, two men and a printing press can make a revolution, what can one man and a copying machine do? In the Soviet Union, where the dis tribution of information is tightly con trolled by the government, the number of photocopying machines is limited and access to them is closely guarded Westerners here estimate there are fewer than 20,000 copiers in the Soviet Union — about 2 percent of the world wide total — and the number is not expected to improve markedly Those machines that are here are off-limits, often locked in special rooms, according to Soviet sources Soviet citizens say that to copy papers at their jobs, they usually need permission from three people an im mediate supervisor, that person's boss and an official of the organization s security surveillance apparatus Then, someone else does the actual copying Even senior Soviet officials appar ently have difficulty getting quick ac cess to the machines Foreign businessmen in Moscow say they sometimes have had to interrupt negotiations at Soviet government for eign trade departments and return to their own offices to duplicate contracts, after Soviet officials told them without explanation that the documents could not be copied there Nevertheless, the Soviet government may not be able to control the flow of information as closely as it would like The copying of materials for personal use is said to be widespread, satisfying the intellectual hunger of the intel ligentsia — not to mention a craving for more money among copying machine operators Access to copying machines — like access to many goods in short supply here — apparently depends on whom one knows One Soviet said recently, "The best way to get something copied is by having a friend whose job it is to copy things " With such friends, Russians some times get to read books and articles the government regards as politically un acceptable, or those simply in short supply That is no small advantage in a country where all printed materials are censored for political content, and the works of even politically acceptable Russian writers such as Leo Tolstoy and the beloved poet Alexander Push kin are chronically hard to find in government-run bookstores In the case of copying machines, though, the old Russian proverb "bet ter 100 friends than 100 rubles” may not apply Better both 100 friends and 100 rubles It is said by Russians to cost as much as 25 rubles (about $33 and about 15 percent of the average Russian's monthly salary) to have a book re produced in Moscow by a copying ma chine operator, unofficially working for himself But business apparently is flourishing. Underground Soviet religious groups use copying machines and under ground print shops to distribute their literature, and Russians say several copies of works by exiled author Alex ander Solzhenitsyn and other out-of favor writers have been made and passed among dissidents and intellec tuals All such activity is not religious or political, however Last October, a 53-year-old Soviet Georgian man was reported to have been expelled from the Communist Party and fired from his job after mak ing more than 100 bootleg copies of Mario Puzo's novel, "The Godfather." Song books also have been re produced from copied scores The copying of such materials for personal use is not without its dangers. One citizen says the copying of mater ials for personal use “can be very dan gerous. You have to be very cautious and know your colleagues in copying rooms very well.” The Soviet criminal code provides for a seven-year prison term for "circulat ing or preparing or keeping" literary materials that “defame the Soviet state and social system.” Furry beast mimics kangaroo TULSA, Okla (AP) - The furry creature that had residents hopping over the weekend was not a kangaroo after all, but a Patagonian cavy. described by authorities as a cross between a rabbit and guinea pig The identity crisis was solved Sunday after city animal control officers were called to a north Tulsa home to catch a kangaroo in a backyard "When I got there, there was this animal, about 25 pounds, 2 to 2Vi feet long, lying in the back yard resting,” Arthur Dunn, an animal control officer, said Monday A crowd of residents in the area had been unable to catch the beast Two officers finally cornered if and took it to the Tulsa Zoo, where it was iden tified and treated tor a leg injury BANANA 1 c SPUT 1 SALE Buy one at the regular price and get the second one for only 1 cent Thursday _October 1 at ■EZ . 13th & Hllyard Succeed in business. 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