**UPDATE 1/16, 12:50 EST – (from the Examiner: In a surprise move today, Representative Eric Cantor(R-VA) announced that he will stop all action on SOPA, effectively killing the bill. This move was most likely due to several things. One of those things is that SOPA and PIPA met huge online protest against the bills.”
Please note however that the fight is not over, as PIPA, the Senate’s version of SOPA, is still being discussed.
THE THING YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND is that the Internet is ours. Yours and mine. It’s the most democratized system for communication that mankind has ever created. While each constituent network develops its own standards (ex: China’s sophisticated Internet censorship, aka “The Great Firewall of China”), there is no centralized governance. Nobody has figured out (yet) how to own it or fully control it.