I don't get it
Obviously you don't. For decades peoples' private home addresses and personal phone numbers have been online. If you, as a private person, were to register a domain, the registrar would collect these information and hand them over to whois, who would publish them.
The whole "abuse@" is now irrelevant in many cases: either people don't react at all, or the contact information is wrong on purpose anyway. Also, as I understand it, publishing the "abuse@" or technical contact details (webmaster@..?) is still allowed. It is the personal information that should be kept rather more private.
I also have no clue why copyright lawyers should have access, or basically anybody at all, except law enforcement. If there is a legal issue go and get the data from the cops...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
