"is protected within this context"

[ToeMater]

I wrote the function, printOut
with prototype...

    ostream *printOut(ostream out , char * output);

and implementation...

    ostream * printOut(ostream out, char *output) {
    int counter = 0;
    do {
        out.put(*output);
    } while (output[counter] !='\0');
    return &out;
}

And im calling it like this...

   char error[] = "Too much Data";
                printOut(cout, error);

However, I'm getting the error

error: 'std::basic_ostream<_CharT, _Traits>::basic_ostream(const std::basic_ostream<_CharT, _Traits>&) [with _CharT = char; _Traits = std::char_traits<char>]' is protected within this context

But I'm not sure how to make a function, that's not in a class, not protected, nor do I understand how it being protected has any effect on it.

[Repeater]

You're not allowed to make a copy of cout (or any ostream), so you can't pass it by value.