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BMW doesn't own the license to utilize the maps...they included one for the version that was in the car when you purchased it. The map company charges a license fee to BMW to enable the maps per user. Now, could they have negotiated a different license? Probably, but they didn't. The stuff is copyrighted material, and giving it to you without paying for it could put them in big trouble, just like the warnings on movies, books, music, etc...
I don't like it either, but the dealer isn't doing anything wrong, because the material costs him... most aren't in business to give things of value away for free. Him charging the labor to babysit the copying of files is a stretch, since you could start it, then (probably) go away, do other stuff, then come back to verify it was finished, so that's something that could be negotiated, but not the actual cost of the license and distribution fee. The actual hands-on time is probably more like 10-15 minutes, not hours it may take to transfer gigabytes of info. And, on a fast USB 2.0 or 3.0 port, even that amount of data should only take minutes, not hours, if the computer supplying it is as fast.
There's an aftermarket marketing opportunity here for someone to figure out how to move generic maps to a device that were obtained and repurpose them for specific applications. Dont know if it will ever happen.
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