Portishead's new album, streaming for free a week before release at Last.fm

Keen to hear the new Portishead album before it’s released later this month? Haven’t half-inched it from the internet? Third will be streamed in its entirety at Last.fm from the 21st of April.

Those streams will be free, but downloads cost - however, Last.fm hope that allowing people to hear the record before it’s released will help put off many who otherwise would’ve downloaded it illegally.

“There is a certain group who are downloading in less than legal ways,” Last.fm’s Christian Ward told BBC Newsbeat. “If people can get hold of an album early on, it might not stop that kind of behaviour, but it does have more of an impact."

This will be the first the site has made an entire album available to the public pre-release, though REM did something similar with iLike last month.