I still don't see why a car or an I-pod is any less copyrightable than an action figure. A generic computer, perhaps, because its look is purely functional. But even then, I'm sure the design of the I-mac is copyrighted - a lot of creative work went into making the I-mac *look good*.
The reason is the concept of "character copyright". Google for it. On a first glance, I found this to be interesting: http://www.ivanhoffman.com/jointauthors.html (about half way down).
Regards -- Daniel