It’s been tried before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensing_of_the_Press_Act_1662
The Licensing of the Press Act 1662 is an Act of the Parliament of England (14 Car. II. c. 33), long title “An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Bookes and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensing_Order_of_1643
Motivated by a desire to eliminate chaos and piracy in the printing industry, protect parliamentary activities and proceedings from its opponents, suppress royalist propaganda and check the widening currency of various sects’ radical ideas, Parliament instituted a new state-controlled censoring apparatus in the Licensing Order of 16 June 1643.
The Licensing Order reintroduced almost all of the stringent censorship machinery of the 1637 Star Chamber Decree including:
pre-publication licensing
registration of all printing materials with the names of author, printer and publisher in the Register at Stationers’ Hall
search, seizure and destruction of any books offensive to the government
arrest and imprisonment of any offensive writers, printers and publishers.
The Stationers’ Company was given the responsibility of acting as censor, in return for a monopoly of the printing trade. [2]
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/29/144417831/godaddys-suport-for-sopa-draws-customers-ire
GoDaddy’s Suport For SOPA Draws Customers’ Ire