Edward Felten, a professor at Princeton, says at Economist.com, that all of us have a right to tinker with the things we own. Tinkering has traditionally led to innovation and progress.

Further, he says:

“We construct the world by observing it and interacting with it, not just by letting things control us....You can't learn to write only by reading.” And just as tinkering with words leads to new ideas, he explains, so does tinkering with technology. It is a necessary first step to innovation. Being able to reverse-engineer software, for instance, is a necessary first step for writing better programs.

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act is being invoked to keep researchers from doing research on security issues, from looking closely at the way hardware and software tools are constructed, and, critically, from talking about what they find. In addition, companies are increasingly selling us licenses to products rather than ownership of the products themselves. Our freedom to use things as we would want to use them is eroding.

Felten has a blog now at: Freedom to Tinker