The law in question bans you from acquiring a paper, putting info you made inside it (literally, like putting a brochure physically inside), and then dispensing the bundle to someone else. The law is framed to claim the newspaper company is the victim when you do this, because you are benefiting from advertising “with” the paper without the paper’s consent. This was done to try and stop the KKK from doing this with recruitment paperwork, although it’s unclear to me why the law doesn’t frame itself as having consumers be the victim of fraud.

So they didn’t take anything, they just didn’t pay for something they allegedly should have.