How to be a dick
If something like SOPA passed, I could see a new species of troll arise. They would go to web-sites they hate, post copyrighted content, then inform content owners in order to let them roll in and screw that web-site harder than a hooker at a frat party. It would be like hiding a dead rat at a restaurant that's had a clean bill of health, then calling the health dept and telling them to look in behind the fryer in order to get that place shut down. /b/tards could take their trolling to a whole new level, literally destroying whole parts of the web.
However, then take this a step FURTHER. If THAT was possible, web-sites would then call for greater protections against trolling like that. SO..... a law would get made forcing folks to register an online identity that made it easy to pin-point who they were, where they've been, etc online...and can trace it back to them in real life. That way all folks could get tracked online, and if someone acts like a dick, the authorities can go arrest them in real life easily.
Think about it. You can't just toss out something like SOPA/PIPA without there being huge abuse of it. And, when it's hugely abused, it will create this trickle-down effect of bills/laws passed that each take away more and more of your freedoms to plug the loopholes in it.
And it will get abused. The United States is already abusing things setup to counter-terrorism by using them against copyright infringers. Dept of Homeland security was setup to combat/thwart terrorism. They're now doing stings on DVD bootleggers. The United States and Great Britain setup an extradition treaty to allow folks breaking the laws of one country from the other to get shipped off to the other country for trial. This was meant to combat terrorism and terror suspects. It's currently being used to extradite the brit kid that owned tvchack. What he was doing in Britain was perfectly legal. But, since it broke US laws, he's getting sent over to the United States to stand trial.
Meanwhile, MegaUpload gets shut down, showing that we don't need things like SOPA, but also showing that the government is willing to shut down a sight doing illegal activity and leaving tons of folks that were doing LEGAL activities out to dry by not giving them back the stuff they stored on that site.
This is your future.
Your parents and teachers and every other self-righteous, jackass adult out there thinks they're doing you a huge fucking favor by letting our Govt's pass stricter laws in a "think of the children" fashion. And in doing so, they're slowly letting your future freedoms slip out of their hands.
It's fucking sad.