I’ve avoided SOPA/ProtectIP because it’s been covered to death, and most others can do a better job than I can. But at this point, it’s getting scary and I need to say something.

These bills are not necessary, at all. The entertainment industry already has more power than it needs to defend itself against infringement and regardless of the sob story it tells Congress, is doing incredibly well financially. The fact they want the power to shut down a site because of something posted by a 3^rd party in the comments proves that they don’t understand how the Internet works. If someone drops a stolen watch in your lawn, you aren’t responsible for stealing it. If the police find it before you do, that’s not your fault, and you did nothing wrong. Why should things be different on the Internet? A site like Tumblr or Facebook would need to double or triple their current staff to monitor the activity of every user on the site. They’d need to ban every user that even remotely infringes on anything. After a short time the Internet will be a desert and then guess what will happen? 

Nobody will discover new music. Fans won't discuss the latest movies. Memes wont bring an old movie back into the limelight and reignite sales. None of this will happen because everyone will be too afraid to post. As regular citizens we are ignorant to the majority of laws, especially the far overreaching ones relating to copyright and intellectual property. How many people know that the "Happy Birthday" song is copyrighted?  How many people know that “Lets get ready to rumble” is trademarked?  Probably 1% of 1% know this, but guess what? You can get sent to jail if these bills pass for infringing on those.

Depending on how you feel about Justin Bieber, SOPA could be a good thing or a bad thing. Had this bill passed earlier, Justin Bieber may never have become famous, and even better/worse he may have been sent to prison. Bieber was discovered because he sang covers of famous songs and posted them on YouTube, the right people saw it and the rest is history. SOPA would make that a felony.  

Life Hacker has a good article and video explaining more about SOPA.

TechDirt has been non-stop SOPA coverage for a few days now.

The EFF is always a great source for information on laws that threaten the Internet.