SOPA, PIPA: What's the big deal?

Apparently, it's a huge deal for websites like Wikipedia that went on strike yesterday in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act, a.k.a. SOPA. and Protect IP Act, a.k.a. PIPA.

My IMC Ethics & Law class had a heated discussion (no exaggeration) last night about this topic. Our professor played devil's advocate: So what if SOPA blocks our access to websites that commits/facilitates online piracy by deleting link that comes out of search results?

As a marketer who values the the importance of brand building, piracy is a major problem. But what SOPA & PIPA try to do is WAY too broad and far reaching. U.S. based sites like Limewire and Megaupload.com can be shut down. But it's almost impossible to take down foreign based sites. So, the SOPA will enable the U.S. gov't to block our access to those sites. They won't show up in Google, Yahoo, etc...

Congress, don't forget: The real issue is that people are uploading and downloading pirated content online. Blocking access to one site doesn't guarantee that another site won't pop up offering the same pirated content. It just doesn't seem smart or right to do.

No access = no information = CENSORSHIP
SOPA & PIPA are essentially throwing the baby out with the bathwater!
It's like BOMBING your house down because of a spider in the bathroom
Instead of blocking access, why not block the ability to upload and/or download from those sites? After all, isn't that the action we are trying to prevent?