Hi, quipper - regardless of whether lwp-download as a component is acceptable, I'd like to suggest that you look through it (and maybe even through LWP) as a learning experience. If you later chance across a similar problem that lwp-download won't cut it for (say, logging in to a password-protected website that needs a cookie for access), knowing what the basic operations are might be really helpful.

I'd personally have used WWW::Mechanize and written it as a one-liner - just about as short as using lwp-download but easier to adapt if necessary.