You don't have to pay a dime to download anything, and we hope the situation doesn't deteriorate further.
If you have any concern about the website please contact the owners via the
contact form. They won't read the community forums.
As Dave says, in the case that you were re-directed by a third party we would like to know about it.
You're quite wrong about the GNU
GPL. When a copyright does expire (in most countries), the work goes into the "public domain", not into the GPL or any other license. The GPL imposes obligations on the licensee, and it expires when the copyright it rests on does, just like any other license.