Is it legal?

Ok you are an owner of a car dealership. The courts have ruled the data is owned by the dealers, however the DMS companies (ADP or CDK/Reynolds) have determined access to the data is controlled 100% by them. The DMS determines who/what/when/how much/etc can access the system. Is this legal?

Strictly speaking no. Are dealerships going to fight with the DMS to keep it open? Undetermined!

The interesting thing to me is that the dealerships allow to be pushed around. This would be like Microsoft saying "Excel is our product, only companies we say can access the data within Excel". The rest of the world would go nuts and call Microsoft a bunch of crazy idiots. They would run Microsoft out of town, however not true in the automotive world. For some reason the dealerships take this crap from the DMS. Dealerships continue to be held hostage by the DMS. Whatever the DMS says they must obey and the dealerships do not fight back.