Gemini 2.5 Pro vs GPT-5.1

The 2013 landmark ruling was *Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.*, which involved Supap Kirtsaeng, a Thai student who financed his U.S. education by reselling textbooks purchased at lower prices in Thailand [1, 2]. This case was widely compared to the 1984 *Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.* ("Betamax") decision. The opposition's rhetoric in both eras, while targeting different aspects of copyright, shared a tone of impending doom for content industries. 1. In the run-up to the 1984 Betamax decision, Jack Valenti, then-president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), used a stark, fear-based metaphor in a 1982 congressional hearing. Describing the threat of home VCR taping, he testified, "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone" [3]. This rhetoric framed new technology not as a tool but as a violent predator threatening the very existence of the film industry. 2. In the 2013 *Kirtsaeng* era, the opposition deployed a more sophisticated economic argument. In an amicus brief, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) contended that applying the "first sale" doctrine to goods made abroad would devastate their business model. They argued it would prevent price discrimination between markets, forcing them to choose between raising prices in developing nations or lowering them in markets like the U.S. This, they claimed, would "significantly reduce the incentives of BSA’s members to invest in creating and marketing software for foreign markets," ultimately harming both innovation and global access [4, 5]. In both instances, industry groups predicted catastrophic consequences from a loss of downstream control over their products. ## References [1] Supreme Court of the United States. (2013). *Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 568 U.S. 519*. supremecourt.gov. [2] Liptak, A. (2013, March 19). Supreme Court Sides With Student in Copyright Case. *The New York Times*. [3] Mann, B. (2018, July 19). How The 'Boston Strangler' And A Ridiculed Technology Helped Create Netflix. *NPR*. [4] Business Software Alliance. (2012, May 29). *Brief for Business Software Alliance as Amicus Curiae in Support of Respondent, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.* supremecourt.gov. [5] Jaszi, P. (2013). A ‘Strikingly Broad’ First Sale Ruling. *InfoJustice*.

The 2013 case was **Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.**, involving **Supap Kirtsaeng**, a Thai math student who imported and resold lower‑priced foreign editions of textbooks in the United States, invoking the copyright “first sale” doctrine as a defense [1][2]. In the earlier home‑recording era, Motion Picture Association of America president **Jack Valenti** cast the videocassette recorder as an existential menace. Testifying before Congress in 1982, he warned: **“I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.”** [3] This metaphor depicted a household recording device as a violent intruder that would “strangle” Hollywood’s economic lifeblood if courts did not curb it—rhetoric later belied by the explosive growth of the home‑video and rental markets that enabled companies like Netflix. Three decades later, in **Kirtsaeng**, opponents of a robust first‑sale rule used more technocratic, economic language but pressed a similarly dire prediction of market harm. In its amicus brief, the **Business Software Alliance (BSA)** argued that extending first sale to copies manufactured abroad would destroy geographic price differentiation and thereby **“reduce incentives to distribute copyrighted works in foreign markets, particularly in developing countries where lower prices are necessary to reach consumers.”** [4] BSA contended that rightsholders might respond by withdrawing from or raising prices in those foreign markets, allegedly harming both creators and foreign users. Across both eras, industry rhetoric framed user‑favoring copyright limits as systemic threats to incentives and markets, even where later experience showed substantial new business opportunities emerging from those very freedoms. ## References [1] Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 568 U.S. 519 (2013), SCOTUS syllabus. [2] Liptak, A., “Justices Back Student on Reselling Textbooks,” *New York Times*, Mar. 19, 2013. [3] U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on home video recording, Jack Valenti testimony, quoted in PBS Frontline / EFF coverage of the Betamax case. [4] Business Software Alliance, Amicus Curiae Brief in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012.