I remember a year later, when Pocahontas was released on VHS, my parents got me the UK edition (which had no Dutch subs), and my dad asked "why?" in the store, and the guy said: to stop piracy here, we already got the UK edition which came out a lot sooner.
Why do you think it's stupid? Obviously he's gonna sell them. And I would imagine that he only stole one copy and then illegally copied them himself. The movie being unreleased would make the price higher. It's wrong yes, but not stupid.