Looking at the history of direct tv in wikipedia, direct tv's history goes way back to Howard Hughes.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirecTV
So they had a crap load of money and conections that date back to the 70's
Yes there some very deep pockets in the online world today but no so deep to do this.
Just by looking on the amount of money SOPA supporters vs Non SOPA supporters have spend on lobbying for and against this bill you can tell internet based companies have a long road ahead of them.