Cuomo, Lentol and Padavan Fight Movie Pirating and Maybe Terrorists

Andrew Cuomo just announced he’s creating a new position in his office to fight intellectual property theft like pirating movies,which Cuomo called the “new high-tech form of organized crime in the State of New York.”

At a press conference in his Broadway office just now, Cuomo said, “It is theft of a work product. It is widespread. It is growing. It is organized. It costs New Yorkers jobs and money.” Cuomo said the problem costs the state $2 billion and 140,000 jobs per year.

“This is a major part of the United States economy,” Cuomo said. “We’re now an economy of ideas. If you allow theft of the idea, you jeopardize the entire nation’s economy and certainly the economy of the state of New York.”

Joining Cuomo at the event were Republican State Senator Frank Padavan and Democratic Assemblyman Joe Lentol, who together are sponsoring a bill to increase penalties for pirating from the equivalent of a parking ticket to a misdemeanor or felony.

Padavan said the money obtained by these counterfeiting organization ends up funding terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. “That money is being funneled to those groups for obvious purposes,” he said.