Digital material is something that is purchased so why would resale be different?
Because the first sale doctrine, as the Copyright Office has explained, is different when examining physical versus digital materials. The justification for the first sale doctrine goes away when you’re dealing with digital materials.
And the ninth circuit didn’t say that the first sale doctrine didn’t apply to digital material, it said that a software license—even if it is a license in perpetuity—is not a sale. Thus, the first sale doctrine does not apply to software.
Look, if you think the Supreme Court is going to gut copyright law so that some two-bit clown can sell an infinite number of copies of a song that he bought for $.99, you’ve got another think coming.
This case is about whether or not a product sold in a foreign country was made under the provisions of the US Copyright Act. Nothing more, nothing else. You are reading too much into this.