As record companies start scouring Napster for copyrighted songs that they want removed from the internet, users have been offered a tool that hides their song files.

File sharing system Aimster has developed the tool, called Aimster Pig Encoder, that moves the first letter of a song title or artist name to the end of the word, so they can't be found using a search on Napster.

Users who are 'in the know' can find pig-encoded files by searching for them with the name written pig-style. For example, Britney Spears would become ritneyB pearsS.

Aimster said the encoder is based on a word game popular among students (perhaps just in the US), called Pig Latin. Purist Pig Latin not only moves the first letter to the end of a word, but adds an "ay" sound to the end as well - ritneyBay pearsSay.

If that word trickery hasn't convinced you to go out and buy some records, you can download Aimster Pig Encoder from http://www.aimster.com/pigencoder.phtml

A US judge this week told the recording industry to provide Napster with song titles, artists' names and the name of the Napster file containing the copyrighted material. Once this is done, Napster will have 72 hours to remove the files.