cuckoo egg

What is a cuckoo egg? An edited MP3 file that appears to be a copyright protected song being distributed via the Internet without the permission of the copyright owner. The initial portion of the song (first 30 seconds or so) will be of the real song. However, the remainder of the song is overwritten by something other than the initial song; usually cuckoo clock sound effects or or a series of random sounds and noises which are free of any copyright ownerships.

Cuckoo eggs will have the correct file size and playing time as the original copyrighted MP3 file will have. The Cuckoo Egg Project was initiated by Stefanie and Michael Fix in 2000 to discourage people from trading copy protected music files online with Napster.