Have you ever downloaded pirated MP3s from the Internet? If you are like a large segment of the Interpublic, you have. "What harm can come of it?", you have no doubt asked yourself rhetorically, "I take precautions!" But consider this: You wouldn't run pirated software from sketchy sources on your computer for fear of getting viruses, so why would you run pirated music on your brain? By listening to ill-gotten music -- even from paranoid artists you trust -- you are potentially exposing your brain to pirate-added cerebrosonic viruses!

With this very real threat in mind (hopefully not literally), Timothy Raymond Cronin has a simple, patent-pending solution for record labels wishing to dissuade piracy while foregoing unworkable DRM schemes: "Certified protection from subliminal content for recordings".

Record labels can add value, Cronin claims, to authentic, non-pirated music files by certifying them free of subliminal messages. By downloading a legally purchased song from the label's preferred digital distributor, customers can be made to rest assured that listening to it won't turn them into some Manchurian Candidate or cult member. Would-be pirates will think twice before hitting the P2P networks as they become trained to view every unauthorized song copy as a potential vector of subliminal enslavement.

Although it addresses a paranoid concern, Cronin's devious business method has a serious orthonoidic flaw: Who certifies that the label's certification is honest? Since the RIAA branch of the New World Order is known to add cerebrosonics to their music and music players, all this certification would certify is that listeners would be victims of only RIAA mind-control plots. While that does take some of the guess work out of who their puppet masters will be, it doesn't really add much value to the consumer.

Given the obviousness of this flaw, I fear that Cronin isn't acting out of good faith toward the paranoid community and is merely trying to manipulate nascent paranoia in the general public for either profit or mind games.