The idea is not to treat students differently between modes of how they learn. If the professor intends that the students have access to this material, he or she needs to make it available to all students, whether they're at home, on the other side of the planet, or in class at that time. How that's done after the fact is determined by the teacher and the technology available. There should never be an intent to treat the students differently, because that creates unfair learning elements in the classroom.
What we're talking about here are elements of copyrighted material that currently, under fair dealing practices, we're attempting to be able to issue multiple copies of in the classroom. The same could be said of a piece of video, for instance, that the professor wants to have the students work with to write an essay or dissect and report on. They need to be able to have access to this beyond the live class activity in order to do that work. It is not unfair to presume that they could have access to that in the same way they have access currently to the printed version. To us, it should be the same.
We're talking about two different modes: synchronous or asynchronous modes of delivery.