[PeterisP]

"Artificial scarcity" is indeed a thing - the author of software or a book or whatever has exclusive rights to authorize making copies, and if they choose not to authorize any (more) copies, then the legal answer is indeed that you can't get it. They can make a limited print run, they can make a time-limited offer, and they're also free to authorize just one or ten or no copies ever, and that's their right to choose so. Compensation to authors is essentially just a side-effect, the core copy-right is the right to control most (there are exceptions) making of copies.

But that's not really related to US legal system or 'western countries', the core principles of copyright are the same almost universally across the globe - here's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention#/media/File:B... a map of Berne convention signatories, there are just a few countries where that doesn't apply. The strictness and likelihood of enforcement of those laws varies a lot, though.