There are multitudes of people who modify their cars to make them substantially more capable than how they come from the manufacturer. Those people would be amused to hear that what they've done is "wrong".
What they do costs them time and money. They're not just cutting open the secret compartment under the car and pressing a magic button. This car analogy doesn't work, does it?
It doesn't always work, certainly, but
all modifications require
time, even if minimal.
For instance, if I remove an air restrictor from my engine, that could take a minimal amount of time and yield a larger amount of power. That would qualify as the sort of modification that some here seem to think is "wrong", would it not?
In any case, if time and/or money is the litmus test, then reverse engineering software and modifying it to make it more capable, which can take quite a lot of time and may even take a decent amount of money for the necessary software tools, hardware interface tools, etc., would certainly be more equivalent to the sorts of car modifications that you're probably thinking of, no? And yet, do you not regard such efforts as "wrong"?
Note that I am
not arguing that such reverse engineering is not a violation of copyright law! It almost certainly is. But as long as the person in question does not distribute his modifications, the analogy would be sound, no?
Where do you draw the line as regards time, effort, and/or money, and why? How is that line, if you draw it at all, not arbitrary?
Furthermore, the modification you make to your car may well give it the same capabilities as a more expensive model from the same manufacturer, but for a substantially smaller cash outlay (example: 2014 Mustang GT with supercharger modifications versus 2014 GT500). Since the manufacturer in that case has made it clear that they intend you to pay a certain amount for the larger amount of capability, is it not wrong for you to modify your car to achieve that capability at a substantially lower price?
Let's try a different tack. Suppose Rigol sold upgrade keys that worked on any oscilloscope, not locked to serial numbers.
a) If you bought an unlock code would you be happy to give it to your friends?
That is actually a
great question.
If there was no stipulation in the transaction that the code was to be used on only one oscilloscope, and absent the below consideration, then sure. That which is not forbidden is allowed. But that presumes that the code isn't covered under copyright (it probably is, under the DMCA if nothing else).
If your question is whether or not I would consider it
wrong to give the resulting code away, well, that would depend on whether or not it is something that could be discovered independently. If it is something that is not discoverable (e.g., it is generated from the private key half of a public/private key pair), then I would consider it wrong to give it away -- because it would mean that the manufacturer has done its due diligence to ensure that the functionality it wishes to protect is protected by the mechanism it chose to use. If it is something that is independently discoverable, then I would not consider it wrong to give it away -- because it would mean that the manufacturer chose to use an independently discoverable code despite the ease with which an undiscoverable code could have been used. The latter means that I would have to presume that the manufacturer intended to gain a marketing edge through the use of such a means, in which case who am I to argue with them on that?
b) Should a company buy 1,000 DS1054Zs from Rigol and one unlock code then apply the code to all of them?
I'd say my reply above covers this as well, though there are likely additional legal considerations which change the balance in favor of buying one code per device. That said, we both know that many companies generally act as if the only thing that matters is their profits, so I would expect Rigol to explicitly state the terms of use of the unlock code in that case, simply because they're not naive enough to expect a company to act in any sort of ethical fashion.
Now it's my turn.
If you discover that your scope's bandwidth can be tripled simply by changing out a few capacitors and resistors, is it wrong for you to make that modification? After all, in doing so, you have spent much less money and time to acquire a scope with capabilities that command a much higher price in the form of a higher bandwidth model in the same line, which means that the manufacturer clearly intends you to spend much more than you did in order to acquire a scope with the bandwidth you achieved. Therefore, have you not deprived the manufacturer of deserved profits? Have you not thwarted the manufacturer's market segmentation intent?
Is it wrong for you to describe the details of that modification on a public forum like this one? How about to supply parts kits with instructions?