That’s an important thing to remember. I don’t think GL intentionally erased the OUT, he just didn’t care enough about it to prevent its effective erasure.
There was a time where he said and I paraphrase “the original versions, if people want them, they’re on VHS, but they won’t last 30-40 years. Generations will remember the DVD versions, the special editions, because those versions will be the only existing ones left” Then in 2006 he ultimately, good quality or not, preserved the original versions on DVD
He went from “all copies of the OOT out in the world will degrade over time and none shall remain” to “Here’s the OOT on a format that has a life expectancy of a lifetime”