LastSharp silently downloads MP3s from Last.Fm playlists

Filed under: Audio, Internet, Utilities, Web services

LastSharp silently downloads MP3s from Last.Fm playlists

by Lee Mathews Oct 27th 2008

Last.Fm is one of the better streaming music services around, but you're probably wishing you could save the tracks it plays. Brush up on your German (or just keep reading) and grab LastSharp, and you'll be downloading in no time flat.

The download link on the author's site is just below the Aktuelle Version text (to save hassles, it points to RapidShare or you can find mirrors on Rapidspread). LastSharp doesn't require installation, just extract the contents of the rar file. As you may have guessed from the name, you'll also need the .Net 2.0 runtimes to use it.

When you launch it the first time, the interface will be in German. To change it, click the tab marked Erweiterte Einstellungen. Click the dropdown marked Deutsh and change it to English, then close and restart the program.

Log in with your Last.Fm username and password, and enter your search text - results are displayed neatly in the "Tune In" box. Downloading is as simple as checking the songs you want and marking the Continue Downloading Automatically option (otherwise you'll be grabbing them one at a time).

LastSharp has a lot of useful options, including on-the-fly normalization with MP3gain, automatic scrobbling, cover downloading, and filtering. Downloads are automatically filed in a tidy Artist -> Album name folder structure.

This is a great app for music downloaders, and I hope it sticks around long enough after this post goes live for our DS readers to enjoy it.

[via gHacks]

Tags: audio, downloaders, last.fm, mp3, music, stream, streaming

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

TY said 6:41PM on 10-27-2008

Downloads are slow! Lots of users perhaps?

Lee Mathews said 6:42PM on 10-27-2008

No, it's downloading them in realtime as far as I can tell. Seems to take as long to listen to a track as it does to grab it.

yuval said 6:43PM on 10-27-2008

hmmm.... now i don't remember my last.fm user name...

Josh said 7:31PM on 10-27-2008

Is there a Mac equivalent?

Butters said 7:46PM on 10-27-2008

Lee, you have shown me two great apps in one day and single-handedly put downloadsquad's RSS feed back near the top of my reading list.

Thanks for reviewing LastSharp and FlickrDown today!

Arcy said 9:13PM on 10-27-2008

Nice app, just can't get it to change to english

Randallrocks said 10:34PM on 10-27-2008

Is this legal?

Pierre said 8:37AM on 10-28-2008

@Randallrocks : No, it isn't

PERFECT

sockatume said 12:12PM on 10-28-2008

Sadly this is the sort of thing that could get Last.fm's amazingly generous licencing agreements revoked. Not that I agree that Last.fm or the software's writer should be punished, but that's probably how the music industry will react if this sort of thing is commonplace.

nanomatrix said 2:54PM on 10-28-2008

@Pierre
Whenever there is no business model for the RIA it is illegal even if there are no laws yet to define the practice.

However one could make the argument of copying streaming radio is akin to copying analog radio to mixed tape that was condoned in the past. Specifically cause the recording is done in real time. If they were to include a mild degradation in quality the analogy would be even more clear. The problem is that this quality is likely an exact copy. This is very much copyright infringement, no license obtained to retain ownership in a work. I am pretty sure LastFM must have a licensing agreement saying something along the lines as you are granted no license to ownership etc etc.... I personally believe that if a product is created with the intention of creating revenue then circumventing it is denying its owner of their workmanship.

ams said 1:11PM on 10-31-2008

actually, there's an even better way to get all of last.fm's songs in full-length, anyone who knows how to use things like HttpSniffer can get the direct URL to the mp3 file.
and even better: the folks at last.fm is totally aware of this. I had an email exchange with last.fm's technical director about this a year ago showing him a simple script for downloading any of their songs. he said it's "not a priority". wtf, I mean, don't they have contracts with labels? don't they have to protect the music?

Crint said 5:30PM on 11-27-2008

Re: Mac version

No and there never will be. If you want to pirate stuff stop using a proprietary machine, retard. Big brother watches mac users

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