When is a zine a zine?

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

So, I'm quite often talking about zines with various people, partly cos of palelyloitering.com, partly just cos, and I keep coming up against this question. I'm sure it's not a new one, so apologies to anyone who's already done this wonderment to death. (But your informed opinions are also sought!)

When is a zine a zine? If an individual staples together their fic, and sends it out into the wide world to be copied at will, is it just as much of a zine as one that has been compiled by someone calling themselves "editor" (of whatever qualifications/experience) and taken to professional printers, nicely comb-bound, or stitched with archival tape, and then advertised and sold to people afterwards?

I mean, what makes a zine a zine, and not just alot of photocopies? There's no legality at all to fandom publishing, so presumably it can't be anything "official". And what does it have to do with size? Does size matter?

What about now as opposed to then? If someone writes a 200-page-when-printed story but only publishes it online, is it as much of a zine as one written 20 years ago on a manual typewriter and then stenographed and sold to people "in the know"? Or is this somewhere that never the twain shall meet?

Oh, so curious...