Tech moves fast! Stay ahead of the curve with Techopedia!
Join nearly 200,000 subscribers who receive actionable tech insights from Techopedia.
A cuckoo egg is a modified MP3 file that looks like a copyrighted song and is spread through the Internet without the consent of the copyright owner. The initial part of the song, typically the first 30 seconds, includes the original song. The rest of the song is replaced with a repetitive cuckoo clock sound or a combination of random voices that are not copyrighted. A cuckoo egg file also has the exact same playing time and file size as that of the original copyrighted MP3 file.
Cuckoo egg files are piracy deterrents that spread like viruses but do not harm computers.
The objective of cuckoo egg files is to discourage MP3 sharing and downloading.
The Cuckoo Egg Project was initiated by Stefanie and Michael Fix. As a musician, Stephanie was concerned about the illicit distribution of copyrighted music via Napster. The cuckoo egg concept is based on the cuckoo bird, which lays eggs in the nests of other birds. Since Napster resembles a large MP3 file nest in some ways, Stefanie and Michael Fix identified this as the perfect place to lay cuckoo eggs.
The first cuckoo egg was released in June 2000. Since then, users have posted thousands of negative messages targeted toward the Cuckoo Egg Project website. Systems vulnerable to cuckoo eggs include Napster, Gnutella and other similar networks without file authentication provisions.
Ironically, although these files are created to deter piracy, many consider cuckoo eggs illegal because they use copyrighted content in the initial 30 seconds. However, because a cuckoo egg only contains a 30-second clip of an original sound recording, and has a fair intent to discourage MP3 piracy, this use of copyrighted materials would likely fall under fair use guidelines.