You are absolutely correct. I guess the answer would be that if such books were, e.g. CC licensed, then hard copies would be able to be printed. Given the preva

You are absolutely correct. I guess the answer would be that if such books were, e.g. CC licensed, then hard copies would be able to be printed. Given the prevailence of self publishing firms available, one would hope there is a market for text book publishers who compete on the printing price alone. Such companies needn't even be publishers themselves, but rather a middleman which makes use of self publishing services.