SOPA and PIPA Bills, lets understand them

One issue I have with people in general is the fact that they tend to follow others.  Recently I've noticed many people that I know saying "NO" to the PIPA and SOPA bills, but when I ask them what they actually know about it, not much comes out.  As I always say, education is key and before I agree or disagree to something I like to educate myself on the material.  When I first heard of the SOPA and PIPA bills I didn't have a clue what people were talking about, there are always both sides to the story and so I try to not let myself be convinced by someone else's choice.  I read a very intriguing article that helped me to understand these two bills.  This is the link to it:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymagid/2012/01/18/what-are-sopa-and-pipa-and-why-all-the-fuss/

This article was written by a Larry Magid, he is a tech journalist and an internet safety advocate.  Recently if you have gone to GOOGLE's webpage you might notice something odd about it.  The word GOOGLE is censored with the caption underneath it reading "Tell Congress: Please don't censor the web!", and even Wikipedia has gone completely dark for 24 hrs.  If that isn't a big enough hint to Congress, I don't know what is.

These two pieces of legislation: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and it's Senate companion bill, the Protect IP Act (PIPA) go hand in hand.  According to Mr. Magid, the purpose of these bills is to make it harder for sites- especially these located outside of the United States to sell or distribute pirated copyrighted material (movies, music, counterfeit purses, etc.).

In my opinion I do think there should be necessary changes to help stop the selling and distribution of pirated, counterfeit, copyrighted material, but I don't believe this is the right way to go about it.  Although I do not know a lot about the internet or as much as I would like to know about technology, I believe that the government should create something that would make it harder for people to download illegal material, track who is going on certain sites that are selling these material, etc.  I recently glanced at the TV when CNN was on and they were discussing these two bills and a woman came on, she said something that stuck in my mind.  Even if the government went through with these two bills there will always be those that are going to get what they want from the internet.  If people want it bad enough there will always be a way to get pirated DVDs/CDs, etc.

I feel that the internet is for the people, sometimes I feel that the internet is my "get-a-way", it allows me to be completely out of my own world and into another (if that makes sense) but still connects me with what is going on.  The government should not have a strong control over the internet and I do feel that if these laws pass then the government will pretty much be in charge.  I would like to know what others think about these bills, what ideas people might have that would allow the government to stop or at least slow down the illegal work that is going on with the government, also, what effect it might have on individuals the work on certain sites like GOOGLE (if they might cut down jobs, losses) etc.http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymagid/2012/01/18/what-are-sopa-and-pipa-and-why-all-the-fuss/