The license to access content online — as opposed to downloading digital media — has always been a tricky proposition. Access may be controlled by passwords or other technologies, but if those means are bypassed legal enforcement can be extremely difficult.
Consider the typical case of a newspaper that places its articles behind a “paywall,” making them available only to subscribers. The articles are original works of authorship protected by copyright. Downloading or distributing them without permission would certainly be an infringement and would subject the infringer at least to statutory damages; but it is unlikely that simply reading those articles without authorization (for example, by using another user’s password) would support any copyright claim at all.
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