SOPA / ACTA happened in parallel with FBI shutting down Megavideo - a place where a lot of "illicit" streaming services offloaded the content to. Basically, a lot of people lost the free TV they were used to. The events were unrelated, but I remember them being widely seen by regular people as the shape of things to come.

Take away people's TV for some bullshit reason again, and they'll go to the streets.