it would be nice to find a corporate lawyer that knows copyright and intellectual rights laws to come in here and explain it to some folks that don't seem to understand what is what about this subject.

I'm no lawyer but as i understand it the dealerships have an agreement with the manufacturers and have to do what they say when it comes to handling these type situations. And furthermore the dealerships shy away from training thier outside competition for obvious reasons, They have their own interests to protect. If they just let thier key information that provides them a source of revenue or profit go freely then their basically handing their livelihood out like a handout.

As i understand it anyone that has the money to pay for training can get it as long as they work for a dealership being represented by the said mfg. As for manuals and such, anyone can buy one over the counter. If anyone is denied that information i believe that is a dealer management decision, not the mfg. Of course i could be wrong on this point because of most everything going electronic and being distributed via internet or networking, the rules may have changed.

As for as independent tech's that own their own businesses? They may even allow them in a factory sponsored training class (at the factory training center) as long as they can pay for it, that part I'm still a bit uncertain of. I do know that companies such as cocacola have access to manuals and can get factory training but then of course they are usually working within a national account directly with the manufacturer, the dealership they deal with is just the middleman representing the factory locally. Most dealerships allow this due to the fleet purchasing relationship the customer has with the factory and allows certain courtesies.

So i wouldn't go as far to say the independent is totally left out in the dark, i believe they are just put in a scenario that cost them more than they can afford or are possibly treated as "competition" so they cant get what they need training wise due to some dealerships and thier politics or company policies.

In a nutshell why would a dealership want to train thier competition? So they can go out and take thier customers away from them? Think about it....