Boy are they in the pockets of Big-Business. Everyone on the bench must have gotten a watch!
We are talking about the case of Costco Wholesale Corp. v Omega, S.A., where the watch manufacturer is basically pissed off that the wholesale retailer found a way to get the watches cheaper, by buying them overseas and bringing them into the US to sell.
The recourse? Simply throw away the First Sale Doctrine of our Copyright Law! Their loophole? The fact that the watches bear a copyrighted logo (the Omega logo) on them! Apparently they believe that transforms the entire watch into Copyrighted Work!
The gist of the Ninth Circuit's ruling: if it was made abroad, no First Sale, until it gets sold within the United States! This entitles the "copyright holder" to very strict control over (re)sale of the copyrighted "work". Remember, the watch is not copyrighted, only the logo appearing on it!
Now apply this contorted bullshit ruling to everything (copyrighted) with a secondary market: books, movies, video games, etc. All things we rent/borrow on a constant basis.
If this ruling stands, you can expect all that to dry up, as merchants will be loathe to touch anything that cannot be proven to originate here, or have been initially sold within our borders.
If this ruling stands, you can expect to see even more jobs sail overseas, as manufacturers arbitrarily add "copyrighted works" to packaging or labeling, and have them made abroad.
