Time to allow hard drives pre loaded with Music....and change Harry Fox
its the simplest of ideas. Take any MP3 player, Ipod, PSP, whatever and pre load it with songs. With 30, 60 and 100gbs capacities, the potential is amazing. How simple it would be if the user could sample and choose.
Context & Ripple Effects
Written at the height of the iPod era, this post argues against the empty-device status quo: with 30–100GB drives standard, players could ship pre-loaded with songs for users to sample before choosing what to keep — if licensing caught up. Hobbyists were already sidestepping the gap with freeware packages assembled for iPod owners, showing latent demand for out-of-the-box content.
The core obstacle the post names — mechanical licensing routed through Harry Fox Agency — is the same rights-friction theme that recurs across later coverage, from Tesla reportedly negotiating directly with labels to bundle streaming into its cars to platforms reworking how rights holders get paid when playback itself changes.
First-order effects
- Device makers like iPod and PSP manufacturers could immediately differentiate hardware by shipping curated catalogs on those large drives, turning storage from a spec into a content asset.
- Labels and publishers would face a surge in per-device mechanical license requests, straining Harry Fox's unit-by-unit clearance process exactly as the post demands it change.
Second-order effects
- Competitors without pre-load deals would be pushed toward their own label negotiations, accelerating a shift in bargaining power from per-track retail toward wholesale content-bundling agreements.
- Sampling-first discovery could cannibalize impulse single purchases while lifting catalog exposure for backlist artists whose songs rarely sell individually.
Third-order effects
- If pre-loading became normal, music economics would migrate toward hardware-subsidized access — a structure that streaming later formalized, where consumers pay for a service or device and rights holders negotiate bulk terms instead of per-copy licenses.
- The Harry Fox critique points at a durable lesson: licensing infrastructure built for physical units becomes the bottleneck whenever distribution technology leaps ahead, forcing repeated overhauls as formats change.
The trend: Content is steadily decoupling from per-unit purchase and becoming a default feature negotiated in bulk between rights holders and hardware or platform makers.