Last.fm announced its extremely cool deal with major music publishers a few days ago in its plan to allow users to listen to full tracks of songs online for free. As of right now, all of the music on Last.fm is available for 3 free listens. After that, you will be told that a subscription service is coming soon.

This kind of sucks. I was extremely psyched about the whole thing until I read that last line. But until the beta is over, if you so wish, you can steal some free music in a seemingly legal way. Don’t ask me if it’s actually legal; get a lawyer. I also want to point out that I buy my music on iTunes and don’t illegally get stuff. It’s true, my friends (who have been hammered with my anti-piracy rhetoric) will vouch for me. At the same time, I hate the RIAA just as much as the next guy.

I did not pirate this song. I just bought the album in iTunes.

So if you have the inclination to get free music, you might be interested in ripping down some tracks using Last.fm and WireTap (if you were in MacHeist, then you’ve got it). WireTap let’s you route the sound coming from your Mac’s speakers back into a file that can be played in iTunes. It’s extremely easy. Just click the record button, then the stop button, and you’re done. Double click the produced file to add it to iTunes. *** I absolutely do NOT condone this. I’m just informing the masses (sorry for all these side-comments, but I feel like I might get sued).

Again, Last.fm’s new service is really cool to use regardless of whether you rip it to your computer or not. With this post, I wanted to highlight both of these cool pieces of software (Last.fm and WireTap). I also wanted to combine these two products in one post because it leads to an interesting question. If the music is allowed to come through your speakers, are you allowed to save that? Some of you might not remember (hell, I barely remember), but we made tapes off the radio. What’s the legality of all this? What are your opinions? Please post your views in the comments.