The price sounds about right compared to our quote in Australia and Singapore. I think you will find this includes a five year ammendment service, which begins to soften the blow.
Our operation has a manual for each pilot, kindly supplied by Eurocopter. They were generous and provided them as part of the contract. But at the end of the five years it might be difficult to convince the pilots to spend another, say 750 euro on the amendment service.
You can see the position of the manufacturers in this. They nickel and dime themselves on the sale price in the hope that they can make the profit in their service contracts and after sales.
Expensive but worth it is the answer. I have heard of photocopies of the EC120 flight manual going around, but shuuurley helicopter pilots as an honourable breed of mankind would not risk a problem with copyright and even consider such a dastardly deed?