Portable music and portable music devices are great innovations for the music lovers helping them to enjoy large collections without the hassle of CD cases and storage issues.
Everything is fine if they must be used and purchased with common sense, to avoid the phenomenon of piracy thus being partially or fully responsible for the down-market of the music industry. Though the portable music industry is booming, there is some confusion surrounding this new format which enhances Piracy. Therefore consumers find themselves in an unsound serenity, where it is difficult to differentiate between legal and illegal.

Before purchasing any musical devices or music you must get sure of few things like what is portable music? Where do you get portable music? How can you tell a site is legal? Can you really get caught? Can you make backups of music downloads? The answers to these queries will help you steer clear of piracy concerns. Anything you can take with you, is portable. The most common definition of this today, however, is the download format, or MP3 or DVD. You can get portable music from a variety of legal download sites on the Internet.

Site having licensing agreements with the record labels reveals that it is a reputable site that offer portable music downloads which means that for each song that is downloaded the correct labels and the related artists will get their royalties. If a site offers copyrighted music for free, then it is an illegal site. If you are unsure, check into a site's background before making the downloads free from any issues. It is possible for a record company to track who has illegal downloads from the sites via IP addresses. This does not support prosecution for everyone who makes an illegal down- load, but it can happen for the unfortunate.

Some download sites offer special programs that enable the creation of backup CDs or they will store the buys online for you, even they enable the copying of music on to multiple devices, depending on the site music is purchased from. You are prohibited to make copies of the downloads to give away because it is a kind of piracy. Digital Rights Management, or DRM, protection is often included in downloads to prevent the person from making copies of portable music. DRM is a special programming key that disables copies after X amount or it can stop correct copying all together. It varies according to the site and the individual record labels to eradicate piracy which is a threat to the music industries.