5. What to consider when downloading

Use only legitimate sites

Artists, music companies and distributors all need to make a profit like any other business. If they don't then they go out of business and everyone is a little bit worse off. So use the right sites to support your favourite artists.

Avoid peer-to-peer

The problem is that you cannot truly know what it is you are downloading. That digital data could be anything - a trojan could be included in the file. As soon as you play the file, it gets installed.

Avoid free sites

Nothing in this world is free. Running a server is not free, someone has to pay for it. And so be wary of 'free' sites offering music downloads.

Check if your download is limited in some way.

A very popular way of limiting what you can copy to other machines is 'DRM'. Meaning Digital Rights Management.

This software may be included in the movie or music file you have downloaded so it will not play on any other machine.

Read the download conditions - if you are fine with DRM files then carry on - otherwise you will need to look for another legitimate site offering more open downloads.