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Digital tools as you've described could be used by the service to manage access to content. A book's author or publisher may object to the book being available for free. There may be limits on the amount of time you can read a book. Some content may be public domain but there may be versions of that content which the publisher has altered to in some way making some portions of the book not public domain.
Knowingly possessing something that was not freely provided to you or the public by the licensed owner, or otherwise known to be unprotected by copyright, is not legal. Just because a file is cached on your device does not mean you are the legal owner of that content forever.
There's a number of reasons you may be charged to download a pdf. It could be a means of legally granting ownership and sharing revenue with the content owner. It could be because the authorized provider of the content is simply charging to maintain the service you've acquired the content from. It could be both or it could be a sketchy website just trying to get your CC info.
This is coming from the perspective of someone in the US. I'm not sure about the rest of the world but imagine basic copyright laws are similar around the world.
Honestly much of your reply is confusing me and doesn't seem to be relevant to my questions. This is what I think is crucial:
What does being "the legal owner forever" actually entail, either with regards to a physical book or its scan? And what does that mean regarding what I can legally do with the cached file on my computer?
If you have legally obtained something, you have agreed to the terms of ownership with the provider / owner / creator of the content. Whether you find a document on your computer or you have paid for it, it does not explicitly give you full ownership of that data forever.
For example: if you buy a DVD from a store, you're actually purchasing a license to watch the content of that DVD. If you were to give or sell that disc to someone else, you are transferring your permission to watch that disc to them. So, if you were to rip that movie to your computer, legally - you only have permission to watch that for as long as you are in possession of that physical media.
Conversely, if you were to "buy" a movie from an online platform, they may relinquish your right to watch that movie if the publisher of that content (or a government agency) no longer permits them to stream that content to you. If you were to download that movie, that does not change the agreement you made with the service to watch it. This is why it's not possible to save an iTunes video purchase to your computer in a non-encrypted format.
In other words, you've got to read the terms and conditions. Even then, they may change the terms and conditions of the agreement.
Terms and conditions are NOT copyright law. They are a separate agreement that is the companies "wishlist" of things they want the consumer to agree too. It's common for them to spell out terms in direct conflict with copyright law.
The reason that an iTunes video purchase is encrypted is because it is illegal to break the encryption in order to make a copy (DMCA). However capturing the playback and transforming it to another medium is for personal use is fair-use.
There is also no time limit to how long a person can save the copy for. As long as they had legal access to the content at the time of making the copy. For example say I recorded a football game from a streaming service. I can save that copy for personal use for the rest of my life even though I purchased a one time only streaming.
Sure. Regardless, their terms and conditions should give you some idea of how they're using technology to permit and/or restrict access.
FTFY
I don't think content providers are encrypting things because it's illegal to decrypt things. They're encrypting things because the content producers (movie studios) want to ensure that (1) they're getting paid for the content, (1B) it's not given away for free and, (2) they're in business to make money.
To my knowledge, there are no laws about making copies. Breaking encryption is illegal because the encryption itself is protected under law. Selling copies is illegal. Playing copies of something for which you are not permitted or do not legally own a license to watch is illegal. So, if you make a copy of a cassette tape, legal; profiting from that copy, illegal.
Copyright law is not contract law.
Some items have time limits - such as renting a movie from iTunes or Amazon or borrowing a book from a physical or digital library. You are entering a contract with the provider where they grant you temporary access to something. If you were to make a copy of something you were given temporary access to, you are breaking the contract.
I don't know what the agreement is for football organizations or your content provider. If you're breaking broadcast or HDMI encryption to record a stream, that's illegal. If you're somehow bypassing encryption, that is probably legal. I do know that it's illegal to re-broadcast the content in public and to resell that program. There are also some fair use rules (in the US) which permit limited use for commentary and education purposes.