Bentley bad business practices for Audi 90 1993-95 CD version 1

[cobram at juno.com]

Grant Lenahan <glenahan at vfemail.net> writes:
> Not my pain actually.
> And none of my software requires this kind of activation. I refuse 
> to buy that software.
> 
> Grant

Me neither, this is information you're buying, with an expectation that
it'll be useable WHEN you need it.  The book analogy..fine, a James Bond
novel in paperback can be bought for $6 new, pennies used, or borrowed
from the library for free.  When you pay $100 or so, you're not buying
the medium, which is worth maybe 19cents, but the hopefully useable info
when you need it.  Plus this is the information age, is Bentley so out of
date that they can't pull up a simple purchase or registration from it's
database?  

The software analogy is bogus, this isn't a program, it doesn't "do"
anything, it's just a piece of media which is rendered useless BY
software.  Make it PDF and dump the BS, psst, Bentley, your encryption
has been broken long, long ago and most people are going to buy the
cracked FleaBay CD's if you don't treat them right or offer your product
for a reasonable price.  Kind of fitting we're talking about Audi here,
Bentley is keeping in line with customer service Audi owners are used to
after the warranty is up.

I'll also keep the electronic FleaBay factory manuals, same information
as the Bentley (actually MUCH, MUCH more since you get a bunch of models
on a couple disks) too.  That media doesn't need any secret handshake or
operating system.
Fair use is being discussed and argued now in Euroland, I thought it had
been ironed out here.  
Whether these official purveyors of information like it or not, the
"secondary" market is their competition and if they don't treat their
relatively small customer base right, they're not the only game in town. 
It's about time Audi and Bentley figured this one out, the competition
sure has.  I needed some specific info a while back for a Honda Prelude,
wasn't in the manual and the dealer didn't have it either.  Called the
Honda 800 number, and they emailed me 25 relevant pages (I only needed
about 4) gratis, didn't even ask my name, just my email address or fax
number.

I'll keep using my V8Q fiche scan in PDF, FleaBay CD's and paper manuals
for the rest, thanks.  The occasional foray into a forum or two will
usually yield much more useful information quicker anyway.

BCNU,
http://www.geocities.com/cobramsri/
Democracy: 3 wolves and a sheep voting on what's for lunch.