The first iPod was packaged in a plastic sleeve with the words Don't steal music printed over the screen in English, French, German, and Japanese.

The text is subtle and tempting in a way, almost compelling the user to break the rules. The italic serif feels like an excerpt from a legal document. Maybe this is close to the truth. I can imagine the legal team emailing the text to the packaging designers as a last ditch effort to cover any fall out with the record industry.

In hindsight, it's interesting how the message, Don't steal music puts the moral decision in the hands of the user. It's easy to remove the plastic sleeve and discard this message and maybe that's part of the point. The software designers could have added this message at the start of each listening session, but instead they chose this approach. It seems plausible that Apple thought the device wouldn't catch on if users couldn't steal music.

In recent years, distruptive design has become a motto in the tech world. Though many of these companies describe their products as distruptive, most of them disregard the user as a potentially powerful distruptive force.

The first iPod gave the user new permissions. One of these permissions was storing and listening to stollen music on the go. This wasn't an after thought but was seems inherient to its design. To get music onto your device, it often mean downloading, ripping, or copying music espeically beacuse the iTunes store lacked much of the music users were looking for. The user inherieted privilages that only a programmer would have and the user's first program was choose whether or not to steal music to fully experience the devices potential.