If SOPA/PIPA Passes

The internet has been passionately fighting everywhere we can to ensure our freedoms aren't taken from us in these unjust bits of legislation.

So lets say it does pass - what then? It would show our voice - the majority of America - the people's voice - doesn't really matter. Our politicians would have shown us they deem their own logic and reasoning more than millions of americans.

If it passes - do we turn violent?

The market value of research and intellectual property depends on how the alternatives would fare if you did not exist.

For example company A can research the cure for cancer a year earlier than company B, so once company A has found the cure there is no longer a need for company B to do so but if company A did not exist company B would find the cure a year later. Thus the difference in utility is that company A is responsible for saving the lives of all those with cancer, minus the cost of implementing the cure, for one year. The problem is in the real world it is impossible to quantify this, you can't be sure whether company B would take a year longer or 10 years or possibly ever find the cure, it could be that company A has a one in a million genius who is irreplaceable, in which case his contribution could be worth decades worth of saved lives.

The benefit of the price mechanism is that our decision to make investments and devote resources to certain products and services is linked to their real life benefits, the only flaws of the price mechanism is it's inaccuracy, not some inherent flaw, that is to say the fact it's flawed doesn't mean we should ignore it and do what the politicians tell us looks good on paper, simply deciding to do what looks good on paper to an uneducated voter or whoever holds political power is always less realistic than the price mechanism, instead of ignoring it rather that we should attempt to fix the flaws and gain a more realistic view of the world, if the politician actually has a valid argument we should simply factor it in rather than reject all the other indicators and facts that compose the price mechanism in favor of it.