In general, or in this specific case? Because I can think of a number of times us vs. them have been important for the advancement of justice, civil rights, protection of individuals etc.

Copyright is intended for the protection of literary or artistic works, but it's been extended to cover recordings and performances. Those arguably have some artistic or creative properties, but I find it hard to argue that telemetry data has any real creative properties.

The truth is, you don't need copyright on telemetry data for machines you control and own, because that data never leaves your control.

It only matters for machines you don't both control and own. Who benefits from differentiating between ownership and control?