SOPA Opponents and Wall Street's Common Enemy (Update 1)

Updated to reflect Congressional dropouts from SOPA and PIPA bills

NEW YORK (TheStreet) - Critics of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Wall Street's richest dealmakers have a common enemy who was seated at Sunday's Golden Globes.

Former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), a namesake of the 2010 Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that's tearing at the earnings of banks like Goldman Sachs(GS), JPMorgan Chase(JPM), Bank of America(BAC) and Citigroup(C), is now a SOPA and Protect IP Act advocate in his new job as head of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) a namesake of the 2010 Dodd Frank Act and SOPA proponent.

Dodd, who chaired a key Senate Banking Committee, became an advocate for Wall Street reform after America's largest banks required billion dollar bailouts to survive the financial crisis. In 2010, Congress passed a bill co-authored by Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank (D., Ma), which restricted many of Wall Street's trading practices while overhauling derivatives markets and rules surrounding mortgage and credit card lending.

In June, JPMorgan Chief Executive openly criticized the Dodd Frank to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. After reporting its first quarterly loss since the crisis, Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein chimed in and said in a November conference that the Act's "Volcker rule" could harm businesses that rely on Wall Street market making.

For more on financial earnings see why Wall Street may lose in a jobs recovery.

Now Dodd is taking some of the government rule making that was directed at banks and is applying it to the Internet through his support of SOPA and seat at a powerful Hollywood lobbying group. In Jan. 2010, Dodd announced he wouldn't run for re-election to the Senate, ending a 30 year career. His re-election campaign would have had to address an ongoing investigation into alleged "VIP" mortgage loans he received from Countrywide Financial.

SOPA is designed to give the U.S. Department of Justice powers to eliminate Web sites that sell counterfeit goods and content. The legislation would force Internet-service providers, domain registrars, search engines, payment services and ad networks to stop working with these sites and provide technical measures that would remove them from the Internet.

For other SOPA connections, see the legislators that support the bill. For more on Web blackouts, see how to survive SOPA blackout day.

The bill is supported by media giants like Time Warner(TWX), Walt Disney(DIS) and Viacom(VIA), who are sick of seeing their movies and T.V. shows streamed online for free.

However, sponsors of the bill first floated by Congress in October dropped their support of it on Wednesday. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) but withdrew their support after protest campaigns permeated the Web. "Stealing content is theft, plain and simple, but concerns about unintended damage to the Internet and innovation in the tech sector require a more thoughtful balance, which will take more time," wrote Cornyn about on his Facebook page about dropping his support for the bill. Overall, six lawmakers dropped their support for the bills on Wednesday.