The fun part is that there are a bunch of legal ways to do that stuff. Since it was his textbook, he may have retained the rights to do so. Some universities also have access to special licensing schemes where they may copy portions of a book in order to distribute to students.

As for the point on distraction: the type of distraction matters. Tablets provide more distractions than ereaders because the type of software available is much broader. Computers provide more distractions than tablets, because the richness of software is much better. At the end of the day I found that the best way to deal with dull texts was just to give into the distractions in a regulated way. I had a timer: X minutes of distractions for Y minutes of work. Not only did the work get done, it got done faster and better. (It is truly amazing how productivity declines while working if I have to force myself to focus on a tedious task.)