Sunny, at 22:48 on May 03 1996, you wrote to Derek Woodlands...

BG> I am in urgent need of a Service Manual for my Canon BJ-300 bubblejet
BG> printer, but neither Canon nor any of their service agents will deign
BG> to sell me one, and whilst I consider their attitude to be rather
BG> unethical, the TPC assures me that they are not actually contravening
BG> the law relating to restrictive trade practices.

DW> I fully support their stand.  If the service manuals got into general
DW> distribution, there would be all sorts of people doing repairs on
DW> their products.  They want to keep the quality of repairs up to standard.

SL> I agree with you.

You're entitiled to your opinion, even if it's wrong in this case.

SL> Cannon has a legitimate reason for refusing to supply their service 
SL> manuals.

Nope, they can do so only by virtue of the fact that as manufacturers and
suppliers, under the Act as it currently stands, they legally have the
ultimate right to decide to whom they supply their products, whether it be
hardware or service information.  As far as refusing to supply me a manual
on the basis of making sure that repiars are done "to their
satisfaction", that's just a bullshit smokescreen, and designed to
make sure that only their OWN service agents can repair their products, and
that is indeed restrictive of free trade.  The fact that I've been a
technician for almost 30 years is irrelevant as far as they're concerned.

SL> Not every refusal to sell a person stuff is a "restrictive
trade practice."

No, but in this case it clearly is, even if it doesn't contravene the Act.

Regards, Bill

--- Msgedsq/2 3.20