Not only do they think they can get away with it, they're preparing to make you pay for it when you access their birdcage filler online.
I used to subscribe to the online 'premium' membership to get the crossword until they went WAY up on the annual price. I don't know if that was the reason, but the other day I got a polling survey about my reaction if the NYT began charging for their online product. They gave several options for the charges by sections: News only, news plus culture, news plus culture plus jobs, etc.
Free access to online newspapers will be as extinct as the dodo and printed newspapers in the very near future.
Most of them aren't worth reading, anyway.