If you have a receipt for the purchase, Apple should unlock them:
I hate being held hostage to a corporation. Anti-theft mechanisms propagated from a corporation should be understood to generally benefit the corporation first (monopoly on resale market) and the user second (limited protection from petty theft).
I know I'm charmed to live in a place where petty crime is relatively low, but these sorts of "lock it to my Apple account" anti-theft tools feel awfully similar to the use of martial law. It's very helpful in limited circumstances but should never be the default state of our lives.