Reading Distopia Cross-Threads

It’s always fun to twine together threads about the future of reading.The introduction of Kindle has occurred at about the same time as the announcement of yet another study on the reading habits, or lack thereof, of US citizens. So, for fun, compare:
1) The Right to Read, by Richard Stallman
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
“For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college—when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her—but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong—something that only pirates would do.”
2) The Future of Reading: A play in Six Acts
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/11/19/the-future-of-reading
3) Unboxing Amazon’s Kindle, By Peter Glaskowsky
http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9822443-2.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Webware
4) Google on “nea reading 2007” for links to and about the NEA study on reading rates. For example, a NY Times article by Motoko Rich, Nov. 19, 2007, starts:
“…Americans — particularly young Americans — appear to be reading less for fun, and as that happens, their reading test scores are declining. At the same time, performance in other academic disciplines like math and science is dipping for students whose access to books is limited, and employers are rating workers deficient in basic writing skills.”