Earlier this week, New York’s attorney general Andrew Cuomo held a press conference where he dragged out 30 Rock star Tina Fey to announce the new Piracy Protection Act, which would turn movie piracy into a misdemeanor crime, which means possible jail time, instead of the lame “offense,” equal to a parking ticket, that it is now. As can only be assumed, he had a leisurely lunch with some Motion Picture Association of America reps, who aren’t happy with the possibly-inflated figure of $2.6 billion that’s supposedly lost to piracy in this state alone. (Actually, he certainly met with the MPAA; flanked by NBC head Jeff Zucker, Cuomo was also joined by MPAA chief Dan Glickman. And a 2005 study by the MPAA says piracy cost the industry, overall, $18.2 billion.)

Your tax dollars are about to be put toward creating a special deputy attorney general post and new efforts to involve the Organized Crime Task Force in intellectual property theft, because as we all know, New York’s organized crime families are involved here.

According to Glickman, 90 percent of street and Internet piracy begins with a camcorder. You know, those shady dudes who “cam” movies and then send them off to BitTorrent. But who are we kidding? It’s doubtful that New York’s law enforcement is going to tread on federal territory and go after Internet file-sharing. Which means most of their efforts will be focused on the streets.

The same streets, in fact, that have all but seen those folding tables and garbage bag sacks of copied DVDs disappear. So, uh, continued success with that.

[Photo: Flickr]

What does Section 494 of the College Education and Affordability Act contain? Probably four people know, ’cause that thing is like 747 pages long. (Actually, it is 747 pages long.) But tucked in there is a provision – some might call it an earmark – from the RIAA and MPAA that would require any university receiving federal funding to install filters deterring copyright infringement on college campuses. The American Council on Education sent its own letters to Congress, arguing Sec. 494 would require undue financial burden on institutions of higher learning that are busy either giving tuition away for free or pinging students with erroneous fees like “science laboratory use fee” when they’re art majors. [THR Esq.]

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• Surprise! People who read blogs are also more likely to buy your goods.