This is not irrational at all. What rational person wants to pay higher prices and to be blocked from arbitrage? In the case of media distributed over the wor

This is not irrational at all. What rational person wants to pay higher prices and to be blocked from arbitrage? In the case of media distributed over the world wide web any sales block is obviously completely artificial and done only for price discrimination. The customers know. It's not a sneaky secret, they can see it right there on the website. Adobe used to be infamous for this kind of bullshit and no body liked them for it. By the same logic, if the customer decides the product doesn't provide enough value to justify the artificially high price the vendor hasn't lost a sale when they pirate it. They weren't going to buy it anyway so it shouldn't matter to the vendor either way. :P