If you host server in the US, you are not a foreign website. You are a local one. In that situation, a SOPA/PIPA makes little difference. They can shut you down easily with existing laws. Do you understand?
If you host server in the US, you are not a foreign website.
You left out an article there which is significant in this case "a server" or "the server".
If I were a "rogue website", could I host 99 servers in Bananastan and 1 server in the US and gain the benefits of complete SOPA exemption without significant risk to my availability?
I don't really know that this is worth discussing that much now that this particular flavor (SOPA) is off the table. But it may come up again just what the working definition of a "foreign website" is for any given set of considerations.
Usually just accepting payment from someone in the US is enough to bring US laws into it.
A "SOPA exemption" isn't going to protect you if you are hosting in the US. You need a DMCA exemption. And if you're reaching audiences the size of YouTube's or Megaupload's, Vivendi will see you in court.
If you have no US-based servers, and if Bananastan has no treaty cooperation with the US on IP infringement and extradition, then shutting you down is not so easy for Vivendi (FBI/DOJ) to accomplish.
For that they need more than what they have now (DMCA) to work with.
