If I write in my journal it is copyrighted. I may not wish for you to have a copy of my journal. The law should then require me to let you take a copy of it despite me not wanting you to have it?
Copyright is about whether I can make and distribute copies of something I've legitimately acquired; for private material like a journal it's irrelevant whether it's copyrighted.
Copyright applies whether or not the origin was "legitimately" acquired or not. Its what makes that journal continue to be private. If you accidentally stumble upon my data like a journal or some fiction I wrote, what then stops you from republishing it however you want if not copyright?
> If you accidentally stumble upon my data like a journal or some fiction I wrote, what then stops you from republishing it however you want if not copyright?
Trade secrets, privacy laws, what have you. Copyright was never intended to cover that case; if it does it's purely accidental, and if we want to address it well then dedicated laws are a better approach.
My journal or some piece of fiction wouldn't be covered under any US trade secret statue that I know of. I don't know of any privacy laws outside of any PII in the journal, but a piece of fiction I wrote wouldn't be covered under any privacy laws for sure.
The only thing giving me the right to stop somoene from distributing it without my approval is copyright.
