A system and method are provided for enabling a portable media player to
obtain media content from secondary systems, such as other portable media
players, via local wireless communication. In general, the portable media
player stores proxy information identifying the media content of a number
of media files in the user's media collection rather than the media files
themselves. When a secondary system is within a local wireless coverage
area of the portable media player, the proxy information for the media
files, or a subset thereof, is provided to the secondary system. In
response, the secondary system identifies media files stored by the
secondary system having media content matching the media content
identified by the proxy information. The secondary system then provides a
notification of the identified media files to the portable media player,
which may then obtain the identified media files from the secondary
system.