> You don't automatically have the right to take my content and do whatever you like with it.

actually you don't have the right to restrict the content, except as part of what's allowed in copyright law (those rights a spelt out - like distribution, broadcasting publicly, making derivative works).

specifically, you cannot have the right to restrict me from reading the works, and learning from it.

Imagine a hypothetical scenario - i bought your book, and counted the words and letters to compile some sort of index/table, and published that. Not a very interesting work, but it is transformative, and thus, you do not own copyright to my index/table. You cannot even prevent me from doing the counting and publishing.