I don’t always agree with Bruce Schneier, but he has a point here in that the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) isn’t going help IoT much given vendors will use it to make stuff the ‘Internet of Their Things’ which isn’t likely what consumers had in mind.
Software licensing has always been an interesting issue in that you don’t really own the software but you have a license to use it, but when it comes to hardware folks figure they own it as they paid for it and they have it in their possession, but they aren’t free to do with it as they wish (actually they might be but as soon as that means changing the software, call in the lawyers). Its all very interesting stuff with huge ramifications.