> if it was actually legal to just produce your own copies surely we would see tons of printing shop specializing in very small printing runs that minimize costs

what would they print? they don't have the original "master" file for the book, scans look bad and take time and OCR-ing a scan is error-prone

honestly i don't find this convincing... i think if small-scale printing made economic sense (and was something people want), you'd see bootleg books, despite the illegality. digital piracy is mostly illegal and that hardly stops people