A month before a “six strikes” anti-piracy plan goes live in the US the body reposible for policing it has been shown up as an RIAA sham. The Centre of Copyright Information (CCI) has become a  mockery after the RIAA failed to mention to its partners that the “impartial and independent” technology expert it was using lobbied for the music industry group.

Now the CCI is now considering whether it should hire another expert to evaluate the anti-piracy monitoring technology. The role is important because from next month the MPAA, RIAA and five major Internet providers in the United States will start punishing persistent BitTorrent pirates. The whole scheme is being run by the Center for Copyright Information (CCI) who agreed to hire an impartial and independent expert to review the evidence that will be used to accuse suspected subscribers.

But it turned out that the expert was Stroz Friedberg whose company was a former RIAA lobbying firm. The agreement between the copyright holders and ISPs requires him to be really independent. It is somewhat surprising that, of all the available companies, Stroz Friedberg's company was picked. It is also being seen as the RIAA attempting to spike the system with its own sockpuppet and a sign that neither the ISPs nor suspected pirates are going to see any justice in the system.

According to TorrentFreak the RIAA “had not informed” the participating Internet providers or CCI’s Executive Director Jill Lesser about this unfortunate relationship. Apparently the outfit was furious. It is thinking of hiring someone else to check his work, or just make his checking public on the very good grounds that the public will rip his skin off if he makes a bad call.

More here.