Yesterday, I created a list of SOPA/PIPA supporters to better understand who, and why this legislation has been proposed. From the sources I have gathered there are five distinct groups of supporters for SOPA.

Digital Photographers/Artists:
You won’t find any of these folks on my twitter list, mainly because they don’t seem to use twitter at all. They don’t seem to SEO much either, that means their advertisement is mostly done by traditional means, ie. Word of mouth. Photographers ranged from your local wedding/portrait photographer, to magazine or architectural photographers. The internet, for them, is a dangerous place. Their bread is in those pictures, and for the most part once they put them online anyone can use them. I know this because It is a constant temptation for me to use other people’s images for content. I don’t have the cash to purchase stock photo’s for web design so I have to hassle with finding half decent Creative Commons photos on flickr and properly crediting each amateur photographer for their images. It is easy, for anyone with less respect for their artistic talent to grab one or more of those photographer’s images and post them on their site. Without SOPA, the best the independent photographer can do is ask the website owner to remove the image or pay their royalty fees. Not likely to happen. I think in an extreme case a particularly mean pirate may bundle many or all of the photographers images and distribute them. SOPA gives them a great opportunity to fight back and seriously dissuade digital theft.

Entertainment industry:
I think it’s safe to say you’ve already heard of the pirated early release of X-men 3 last year. And there are few people more vocal about loosing money online than the music industry. It goes without saying that despite their ability to make money selling their movies these companies will go to to any length to make more. They have deep pockets, and they’re shelling a lot of resources into making the internet make them more money through this legislation. I think its safe to say that the argument on the economical impact of digital piracy is still open for debate. Still the industry will make more money if SOPA and PIPA are passed.

Highly Marketed Brands
This is the physical counterfeit area of the bill. Online websites are selling knockoff products that closely resemble (and nefariously use the logos of) merchandise made by companies who spend millions of dollars on marketing. Counterfeit sales are a completely different animal than digital piracy but a major market for those sales is online. SOPA and PIPA will give these companies the ability to limit the illicit sales of products that mimic or resemble their own.

The IP industry
There are a few random other companies and industries who, put a significant amount of money into Research and Development. Their objective is to strengthen their ability to limit other manufacturers from using their Intellectual Property (ie sue the pants of everyone). This includes car parts manufacturers, Publishers, and Standardized test producers.

The Law.
Private and Public law enforcement groups support both SOPA and PIPA. I can’t quite grasp the motivation behind Public law enforcement and government officials. Maybe its just because it will make their jobs easier, maybe they owe favors or kickbacks to people in industries who support these bills. The private sector law enforcement includes companies that track down counterfeiters and develop means to authenticate industrial goods, presumably these companies would gain from SOPA/PIPA in much the same way as the IP industry and of course must support the best interests of their clientele. They may even stand to gain a sizable amount of government funding after this legislation passes, and work as a quasi governmental agency with an over abundance of power not unlike the TSA.

For the Most part, it is absolutely understandable that these corporations and interest groups would try to make these bills work to their best interests. They have organized a very large amount of support into some very broad and all encompassing bills that may ultimately have very resounding ramifications across both our society and our economy.