No idea. My guess would be that it depends on the license. I assume (which most likely means I'm making an ass out of myself) that the patches and updates are an official free service offered by the publisher for the product they gave you a license for. Or it can be part of the service the platform you bought the game on gives you (so it's not covered by the game's license).
Free additional content also comes (usually) with its own license, so just because something is given for free on store A doesn't mean you have a license for it.

If you really want to know more about that, I'd suggest asking a lawyer.

I don't want to create a separate thread and I misplaced the one I'd posted in, so here it goes:

Steam has stopped supporting buttcoin.

In the thread which I can't find, someone said buttcoin made for a great means of payment now that it cost a lot. I pointed out that "the bad money drives out the good" (which is to say, inflationary is preferrable to deflationary), but also defended buttcoin proponents from detractors by saying buttcoin payments, as suggested by the proponents, would be transparent for the acquirer.

Now, I need to post a correction, because that last part was deceptive by >implication. Turns out people who advertized the transparency lied, and the lack of it is exactly why Steam is dropping buttcoin support: They're the ones dealing with the fallout, not the payment processor.