The problem is the bills were way too strong and had potential for abuse. You need checks and balances. It has nothing to do with "free speech", Privacy or Censorship.. Those are the usual shouts thrown out to scare people. As misguided as the bills were, they were at least a way to make people aware that there are problems.
On the other hand, we need something to protect our interests, even if the main beneficiary will be the music and film/video industry, maybe software producers. Hey maybe that vocal minority doesn't want to lose their free downloads and pirated movies?
DMCA does nothing.
Personally, most of the people who download a song or a movie, that I know, would never buy it in the first place. The amusement is looking or listening to see what it's about and it gets deleted. Not like someone who steals our little bit of income and profit and re-sells it for their personal profit. And because we aren't some big corporation with legal services looking out for our interest, we'll be fighting on our own if some bill is eventually passed.
I think the question is, if there was some way to shut down one of those file sharing sites that redistributes our images, would people go to a pay agency or just do without them? It isn't like cleaning house will produce huge gains in sales or income for us... OR the big industrial communications and entertainment companies.
