Swayed by the crowd This is probably why software, movie and music piracy is so rampant. Each of us needs to set an example for others, by not pirating ourselves, and by gently discouraging our friends and family from piracy....

The link to the Moore film doesn't work for me.

This one does.

Why is this "swayed by the crowd" idea considered news, when the infamous Milligram and Stanford Prison experiments made these same points so powerfully over 3 decades ago?

I suggest that the reason is the following conflict: people in the USA believe that they are unmoved by the opinions of others (false sense of individuality) while they are ultimately pack animals.

This was the basic point that social psychologist Robert Cialdini made at a talk I saw at the AAAS meetings in SF this past February. FoxNews wrote a story about this talk, but it's a bit crappy.

The basic point is this: when people are asked what would motivate them to be environmentally responsible citizens they gave the lowest rank to "because neighbors are doing it." Nevertheless, being told that "their neighbors were doing it" was the #1 best ACTUAL motivator of environmentally responsible behavior.