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.
