Caving to a massive campaign by Internet services and their millions of users, Congress indefinitely postponed legislation Friday to stop online piracy of movies and music costing U.S. companies billions of dollars every year. Critics said the bills would result in censorship and stifle Internet innovation.

The demise, at least for the time being, of the anti-piracy bills was a clear victory for Silicon Valley over Hollywood, which has campaigned for a tougher response to online piracy. The legislation also would cover the counterfeiting of drugs and car parts.

Congress’ qualms underscored how Internet users can use their collective might to block those who want to change the system.

The battle over the future of the Internet also played out on a different front Thursday when a loose affiliation of hackers known as “Anonymous” shut down Justice Department websites for several hours and hacked the site of the Motion Picture Association of America after federal officials issued an indictment against Megaupload.com, one of the world’s biggest file-sharing sites.

The site of the Hong Kong-based company was shut down, and the founder and three employees were arrested in New Zealand on U.S. accusations that they facilitated millions of illegal downloads of films, music and other content, costing copyright holders at least $500 million in lost revenue. New Zealand police raided homes and businesses linked to the founder, Kim Dotcom, on Friday and seized guns, millions of dollars and nearly $5 million in luxury cars, officials there said.

In the U.S., momentum against the Senate’s Protect Intellectual Property Act and the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act, known popularly as PIPA and SOPA, grew quickly on Wednesday when the online encyclopedia Wikipedia and other Web giants staged a one-day blackout and Google organized a petition drive that attracted more than 7 million participants.

That day alone, at least six senators who had co-sponsored the Senate legislation reversed their positions. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in statements at the time and again on Friday, stressed that more consensus-building was needed before the legislation would be ready for a vote.

On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he was postponing a test vote set for Tuesday “in light of recent events.” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, followed suit, saying consideration of a similar House bill would be postponed “until there is wider agreement on a solution.”

With opposition mounting, it was unlikely that Reid would have received the 60 votes needed to advance the legislation to the Senate floor.

The two bills would allow the Justice Department, and copyright holders, to seek court orders against foreign websites accused of copyright infringement. The legislation would bar online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as credit card companies from doing business with an alleged violator. They also would forbid search engines from linking to such sites.

The chief Senate sponsor, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., cited estimates that copyright piracy costs the American economy more than $50 billion annually and that global sales of counterfeit goods via the Internet reached $135 billion in 2010. He and Smith insist that their bills target only foreign criminals and that there is nothing in them to require websites, Internet service providers, search engines or others to monitor their networks.

That didn’t satisfy critics who said the legislation could force Internet companies to pre-screen user comments or videos, burden new and smaller websites with huge litigation costs and impede new investments.

The White House, while not taking a specific stand on the bills, last week said it would “not support any legislation that reduces freedom of expression … or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.” On Friday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said online piracy is an issue that has to be addressed, “but everybody has to be in on it for it to work and get through Congress.”

The scuttling, for now, of PIPA and SOPA frustrates what might have been one of the few opportunities to move significant legislation in an election year where the two parties have little motivation to cooperate.

Until recently “you would have thought this bill was teed up,” with backing from key Senate leaders and support from powerful interest groups, said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., who cosponsored the original bill but quickly dropped his backing on the grounds the bill could undermine innovation and Internet freedom.

Moran said the “uprising” of so many people with similar concerns was a “major turnaround, and in my experience it is something that has happened very rarely.”

Moran said PIPA and SOPA now have “such a black eye” that it will be difficult to amend them. Reid, however, said that there had been progress in recent talks among the various stakeholders and “there is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved.”

Jeff Chester, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy, a consumer protection and privacy advocacy group, said Google and Facebook and their supporters “have delivered a powerful blow to the Hollywood lobby.” He predicted a compromise that doesn’t include what many see as overreaching provisions in the current legislation.

“It’s been framed as an Internet freedom issue, but at the end of the day it will be decided on the narrow interests of the old and new media companies,” he said. The big questions involve who should or shouldn’t pay — or be paid — for Internet content.

Leahy said he respected Reid’s decision to postpone the vote but lamented the Senate’s unwillingness to debate his bill.

“The day will come when the senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem,” Leahy said. Criminals in China, Russia and other countries “who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided” it was not worth taking up the bill, he said.

In the House, Smith said he had “heard from the critics” and resolved that it was “clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.” Smith had planned on holding further committee votes on his bill next month.

The bill’s opponents were relieved it was put on hold.

Markham Erickson, executive director of NetCoalition, commended Congress for “recognizing the serious collateral damage this bill could inflict on the Internet.”

The group represents Internet and technology companies including Google, Yahoo and Amazon.com. Erickson said they would work with Congress “to address the problem of piracy without compromising innovation and free expression.”

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who has joined Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Moran in proposing an alternative anti-piracy bill, credited opponents with forcing lawmakers “to back away from an effort to ram through controversial legislation.”

But the CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, former Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, warned, “As a consequence of failing to act, there will continue to be a safe haven for foreign thieves.” The MPAA, which represents such companies as Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., is a leading advocate for the anti-piracy legislation.

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As they poured out of the city Tuesday morning after the BCS championship game, fans of LSU and Alabama who stayed at local hotels received cards thanking them for visiting and inviting them to come back to New Orleans. The thank-you card provides them with a chance to win a free trip to New Orleans during Mardi Gras, a spot on a float during the Orpheus parade, and tickets to attend the Carnival krewe’s post-parade bash.

At first blush, it seems that the ultimate prize surely will go to the winning visitor, but the city’s hospitality industry may end up being the big winner.

Visitors who register for the drawing can choose to be added to the marketing corporation database, giving the industry the opportunity to entice thousands of people with travel deals, especially during the slow season for New Orleans tourism.

“The important thing is that we want people to know that we appreciate them and that we want them to come back,” said Mark Romig, chief executive officer of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corp., the tourism promotion agency that spearheaded the campaign. “We think we are doing this in a unique and compelling way.”

The thank-you cards, printed on heavy card-stock and affixed with a purple or gold doubloon, represent a first-of-its-kind promotion, designed to capitalize on thousands of visitors in town over the past two weeks to attend sporting events, Romig said.

“It’s a pilot,” Romig said. “We’re trying it out.”

About 25,000 cards were printed and given to 30 hotels to hand out to guests as they checked out beginning Dec. 29. Hospitality industry officials are hoping the cards made their way into the hands of fans of the University of Michigan, Virginia Tech, LSU, the University of Alabama, the Carolina Panthers, Atlanta Falcons and the Detroit Lions.

So far, 314 people have responded to the card by visiting a special website listed on it. Romig said his organization will monitor the results to determine if the trial is successful, how it might be modified and what to do moving forward.

The effort cost about $12,000, or 48 cents per card.

The idea was born last month at a marketing corporation board meeting. Board member and Hyatt Regency General Manager Michael Smith suggested that the industry find a way to turn the thousands of visitors into repeat customers. Smith’s thinking was that it would be nice to have the same level of visitation during the slower summer months of June through August, when hotel guests are scarce as compared with boom months like October and during special events.

“One of the reasons I brought it up was that we have to have a strategy and tactic,” said Smith, whose hotel handed out cards. “We know that in July, August and September we’re going to have some downtimes. But if you look at what we just had in front of us, if we could put something in front of those guests now we could use that as a foundation for those down times, to fill that need period.”

While the cards don’t encourage guests to return during the slow months, what they do is send them to a tourism website and require that they enter their email address in order to qualify for the trip give-a-way. If they choose to let the marketing corporation retain their email information, the industry and its partners will have developed a list of travelers that already are familiar with New Orleans and whom they can market directly to.

“We weren’t yet ready to list any discounts and special deals,” Romig said. “But when we’re ready to do that, we’ll have additional names to send that to.”

Added Smith: “Now, what we can do is we can control our destiny,” Smith said. “We can strategically decide what the offer will be.”

A main goal was to reach out to as many visitors as possible while New Orleans was top of mind and associated with a good time, said Kim Priez, who does marketing for the New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau.

“The power of getting these email addresses is that we’re getting the visitor who is leaving and just had the time of their life,” said Priez, who worked with the marketing corporation on the effort. “It’s the perfect timing.”

The effort could eventually be recreated by the CVB, Priez said.

“We definitely would like to consider something like this with conventions and meetings,” said Priez, who does marketing for the visitors bureau. “We’re keeping a very close eye on the responses. New Orleans has a very high repeat visitor percentage. This just encourages them to want to come back.”

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As a pro soccer player, Jared Montz of Mandeville knew the values of a good coach, so he started a business: a soccer camp and online soccer academy for kids. But as an entrepreneur, Montz didn’t realize how much a coach could help with his business until he began meeting with John Laurie, a New Orleans-based business coach whose free consulting helped Montz’s ventures grow in revenue and number of employees.

“We learned a whole lot,” Montz said. “The consulting made a world of difference.”

Montz is one of 400 entrepreneurs from the New Orleans area who have received free one-on-one business coaching through the Urban Entrepreneur Partnership, a free course tailored to individual businesses.

With outposts in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, the Gulf Coast program was established in 2005 as part of the White House’s response to the economic devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. It is funded jointly through the Kauffman Foundation and a $500,000 annual grant from the state Office of Community Development.

Client businesses go through a five-stage process with their coach to improve any problem areas. Each stage is tailored to address the business’ particular needs, be it ballooning expenses, insufficient market research, or the need for outside investment.

That customization enables the program to work better for the client business than other programs that use a one-size-fits-all approach, said Laurie.

“Every client’s different,” Laurie said. “Our primary goal is to increase profitability and scalability, so we’re not doing our job if we’re taking them through things they don’t need because that’s a waste of our time and their time.”

The program seems to work: the average client company has seen annual revenue and profits increase by 9 percent and 8 percent, respectively, said Daryl Williams, CEO of Urban Entrepreneur Partnership, based in Kansas City, Mo.

That growth for individual businesses translates to a healthier economy as a whole, Williams said.

“At the core of it all is the fact that small and medium enterprises are the biggest job-creators in the country,” Williams said. “Our goal is to scale businesses up to be able to hire more people and contribute more to the tax base.”

Local entrepreneur Shuchi Khurana has been meeting with Laurie for the past four months to help grow his biotech start-up, Bioceptive, which is working on an innovative new insertion tool for female birth control devices that minimizes adverse effects. Khurana said that Laurie helped his company better package itself to ultimately amass $130,000 in funding.

“The best part of the coaching was not just the guiding part but his asking us questions, like, ‘Why are you doing it this way, what are the problems you foresee, what happens if some prospective customers or doctors don’t like the product, or what if they love it — are you ready to grow quickly?'” Khurana said. “Without this coaching we might have been a bit slower and difficult to figure all that out.”

Any business can pay for the program’s consulting services. To qualify for the free program, however, entrepreneurs must meet the following criteria: be an existing business, have fewer than 100 employees, and not be established as a religious or political organization.

Eligible businesses also must be located in one of the following 20 parishes: Ascension, Assumption, Calcasieu, Cameron, East Baton Rouge, Iberia, Iberville, Jefferson, Lafourche, Livingston, Orleans, Plaquemines, Point Coupee, Rapides, St. Bernard, St. Landry, St. Mary, St. Tammany, Terrebonne and Vermillion.

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Over the past few years, New Orleans has been receiving a lot of national recognition and it hasn’t been about Hurricane Katrina or Bourbon Street. It’s been focused around our growing businesses, high-ranked businesses environment, bourgeoning industries, and entrepreneurship.

Even with all the positive press and high placements on several national lists, one wonders how effective it has been in recruiting more entrepreneurs and proactive individuals to New Orleans, and exactly how many people we have seen migrating into the city as a result. Of course, we are proud and appreciate the praise and positive reviews, as well as the feedback. However, how can we continue to create awareness about the opportunities in New Orleans and further enlist relocation here?

Three local organizations at the forefront of economic development and entrepreneurship have come together to create a more proactive approach to give individuals the opportunity to experience for themselves everything New Orleans has to offer young professionals.

NOLAbound, a collaborative effort of GNO, Inc, the Downtown Development District, and the Idea Village, is a program that will offer 25 entrepreneurs, innovators, and professionals with broad networks from across the country an all-expenses paid experience in New Orleans. As part of the unique program, the recruits will document, share and broadcast their experience in New Orleans to their social networks, focusing on entrepreneurship within four sectors specifically: technology, bioscience, sustainable, and arts-based industries.

“We continue to hear from visiting professionals that they are surprised and impressed by the entrepreneurial spirit that has developed in New Orleans in recent years,” said Curry W. Smith, a spokesperson for NOLAbound.  “NOLAbound is our unique way of showing the rest of the world how innovative New Orleans has become.  By selecting 25 individuals to witness our progress for themselves, we are asking them to help us reach thousands more with the true story of the ‘new’ New Orleans.”

With a mission to endorse and promote the entrepreneurial movement and progressive thinking in New Orleans, the program will take place from Wednesday, March 14 to Sunday, March 18, 2012, perfectly timed to coincide with the fourth annual New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. The invited participants will receive free airfare, ground transportation, meals, room and board, and will have access to several New Orleans Entrepreneur Week events. The NOLAbound invitees will also have the opportunity to meet with leaders in the city’s growing arts, biosciences, digital, and sustainable sectors, be granted VIP access to select activities in the city, and will be encouraged to experience the unique neighborhoods, people, and culture of New Orleans.

Besides asking each participant to assess New Orleans and share his or her experiences with their networks through the NOLAbound website, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube, and/or personal blogs, the program will be chronicled on video as part of a documentary feature film. Set to debut next fall, the film will highlight New Orleans as an emerging entrepreneurial and multi-industry hub. One of the participants will also be selected by NOLAbound followers, based on who best represents New Orleans with their impressions of the city, to return in October 2012 for the world premiere of the film.

The goal is to minimize misconceptions about New Orleans and help evaluate and spread the word about the city’s status as a center of new business progress and thinking, by giving visitors from around the country a unique opportunity to experience a part of New Orleans that visitors and tourists don’t have access to.

With the documentary is its key deliverable, the NOLAbound program is designed to solidify why New Orleans was recently named America’s “#1 Brain Magnet” by Forbes and chosen as the “Coolest Startup City in America” by Inc.com, and further prove that New Orleans is indeed one of the best places to live, work, and play.

The application period for NOLAbound begins today, Thursday, November 17, and continues through Friday, December 16.  Candidates can apply online at benolabound.com, and follow updates on the program on Twitter and Facebook.

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Overnight success might be a pipe dream, but the University of New Orleans is hoping to make overnight entrepreneurship a reality. The Lakefront university will host a three-day entrepreneurship program at the end of which three to four new companies will have been created. The program, 3 Day Startup New Orleans, begins Friday and concludes Sunday.

“The main purpose of 3 Day Startup is to get more of the university students in southeast Louisiana to start their own technology companies,” said Jonathan Redmann, a UNO computer science student and one of the event coordinators. Redmann hopes it will be a catalyst in encouraging Louisiana college graduates to stick around after they’ve collected their diplomas. “We’ve got to change the perception that there is not opportunity for technology students here. While I don’t think that a bunch of students at UNO are going to change that by themselves or change it overnight, it can be done.”

The program will bring together 40 computer science, business and graphic design students from UNO, Loyola University, Tulane University and Southeastern Louisiana University as well as local venture capital investors and technology industry workers.

First, the students, who have already been selected, will have an opportunity to pitch each other on their own technology business ideas. Then the group will choose three or four of those ideas to move forward, with the 40 students split into one team for each idea.

Redmann said each team will include a mix of computer science, business and graphic design students. The teams are encouraged to work through the night, leaving the school only to shower as they prepare for a final pitch session Sunday evening.

“We’ve encouraged all the students to bring sleeping bags,” Redmann said.

Throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday they will meet with software developers and others from local technology firms who will guide them as they work. On Sunday the students have an hour to present a working prototype of and business plan for the website, mobile application or whatever product it is they’ve designed.

The pitches will be reviewed by a group of primarily local investors, including those who specialize in early stage capital investment.

There will be no winner at the end of the night as is the case with many business plan competitions. Instead, the hope is that the venture capitalists and others listening to the pitches will decide to invest.

“This is not an exercise or training program,” Redmann said. “This is going to be the students producing a product and business plan over the weekend.”

The 3 Day Startup program was launched in Austin in 2008 after a group of students decided to try to cultivate the talent around them and stop it from moving to Silicon Valley, California.

“In Austin we felt like students had ideas that were just as compelling,” said Jeremy Guillory, a co-founder of 3 Day Startup. “They just weren’t executing them.”

The reason, Guillory and his friends discovered, wasn’t that there wasn’t enough investment capital or education in Austin, but that proper networking was a problem. The people with ideas weren’t building lasting connections with other idea people and the people who could carry those ideas into reality, Guillory.

“We tried to devise this three day event where all of those obstacles and all of those problems that would prevent a student from running with their ideas is destroyed,” Guillory said.

After a few successful outs in Austin, Guillory and his classmates decided to turn the program into a nonprofit and take the show on the road. “We realized that there was actually a little bit of magic to what we were doing.”

So far, there have been 12 3 Day Startup events in the United States, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, according to the nonprofit’s website. Those events have created 14 companies that together have raised $4 million investment. “There’s a tremendous amount of success behind it,” Redmann said. “There’s a proof of concept behind the startups.”

Redmann is hoping the program will encourage graduates interested in working for or starting their own technology firms to do so and to do so in New Orleans.

“We’re really excited about what this can do for New Orleans and the technology community in New Orleans,” Redmann said. “So many students coming out of the technology programs in Louisiana feeling like they have to leave the state to find jobs. We’re hoping to change the mindset.”

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When Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne announced the state’s advertising contracts for the next three years, there were two notable changes. First, longtime contract holder, Peter A. Mayer Advertising Inc., had been replaced. Secondly, a separate contract to promote “multicultural tourism” had been eliminated.

The lieutenant governor’s office oversees the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism and is charged, among other things, with promoting tourism in Louisiana.

The state’s advertising and marketing contracts are awarded every three years, and companies, including those under contract, must provide a formal pitch for the work. The companies that receive contracts are paid as work is assigned to them and completed.

Dardenne, who took over as lieutenant governor in November, inherited an advertising and marketing contract that included four individual contracts. The agreements called for Peter Mayer to perform advertising, branding and media placement for the state. Deveny Communication was contracted to do public relations. Miles Media, a company based in Sarasota, Fla., handled Internet-based advertising. And GMc+Company performed multicultural tourism advertising. The structure had been created during Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s tenure as lieutenant governor.

Expanding the market

Dardenne’s team replaces Peter A. Mayer with Trumpet Group and eliminates the GMc+Company contract. The other contracts were renewed.

The new contracts were awarded after a 10-member committee reviewed and scored each company’s proposal, Dardenne said. The top three or four were asked to make oral presentations.

“It was based on a fairly sophisticated scoring process,” Dardenne said. “It was a very tough decision and all of this was relatively close.”

Dardenne said the state chose Trumpet Group to replace Peter Mayer, in part, because Trumpet’s pitch included a partnership with a “very seasoned media buyer” that was attractive because the state wants to begin advertising in new markets, Dardenne said.

“We’re putting a new emphasis on this expanded market,” Dardenne said. “We haven’t been quite as aggressive in the past in reaching these markets.”

Dardenne said the tourism office wants to go from marketing heaviest to locations within close driving distance to the state, such as Houston and Mobile, Ala., to those that are a short flight or a bit longer drive away, like Atlanta and Memphis, Tenn.

Trumpet “put a premium on our media buys,” Dardenne said. “That was very much an important part of it.”

Mayer has “no hard feelings”

The Mayer agency held the state’s advertising contract for 18 years, Mark Mayer, the company’s president said. The firm was renewed six times by five different lieutenant governors, including former Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a surprise (we lost the contract). It’s a surprise we held it for so long,” Mayer said. “There’s absolutely no hard feelings. We’ve been privileged to work for state tourism for 18 years.”

Meanwhile, the multicultural contract was eliminated because the four-contract system was unwieldy, Dardenne said.

“We have a very limited staff and their recommendation was to do this,” Dardenne said.

However, each of the three other marketing and advertising contracts now contain a provision requiring that they target multicultural audiences as well.

“All of those needed to include an ability to reach multicultural markets,” Dardenne said. “They had to demonstrate a proficiency of reaching multicultural markets.”

The advertising campaign the Mayer agency put together before it was released from its duties will continue to be used, Dardenne said.

“I was very pleased with the work that all of our vendors did during the time I’ve been here,” Dardenne said. “I’m equally excited about the new vendors and their ability to make sure they continue to be aggressive in our advertising strategy.”

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Fight Online Theft from Global IP Center on Vimeo.

The U.S. Chamber is appealing to Congress to pass legislation that would provide more resources and personnel to go after websites dedicated to counterfeiting and piracy, also known as rogue websites.

In a February 15 letter to Congress signed by businesses, labor organizations, professional organizations, and trade associations, the Chamber urges Congress to “make it a priority to enact legislation that will provide the government with enhanced tools to disrupt the efforts of those who use websites to make illegal profits by stealing the intellectual property (IP) of America’s innovative and creative industries.”

Last year, a bill providing the Department of Justice enhanced legal tools to crack down on rogue websites was unanimously passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. However the bill was not taken up by the full Senate before the end of the congressional session.

Rogue websites, which are devoted almost exclusively to offering or enabling unauthorized downloads or streaming of copyrighted material – including the latest movies and music hits— or to trafficking in counterfeit products, from pharmaceuticals to luxury goods, are a threat to legitimate businesses and a growing problem. A recent report by global brand protection firm MarkMonitor examined about 100 rogue websites and found that they generate more than 53 billion visits per year.

Legislation to crack down on rogue web sites is part of the 2011 intellectual property policy agenda recently submitted to the White House by the Chamber’s Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC). Other recommendations include:

More resources and personnel for the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC).

• Promote and defend IP rights in international settings such as the World Trade Organization.
• Work with Congress to approve pending free trade agreements.
• Address inadequate IP protection and enforcement in foreign markets.
• Give agencies such as Customs and Border Protection and Immigration Customs Enforcement greater leeway to prevent counterfeit goods from entering the United States.
• Add benchmarks and consequences to the annual government process listing foreign countries and governments that do not honor international intellectual property laws and policies.
• Expand and improve the IP attaché program at American embassies overseas.

The GIPC’s proposals to Congress and the administration are available here.

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