What I meant is that Lucas committed a serious error by not allowing the originals to be available to the ongoing public when they are so integral to our popular culture. It's like painting over the sistine chapel with Abstract expressionist brushstrokes or placing every copy of the the complete works of Shakespeare in a locked storage facility on the North Pole.
The only reason the GOUT existed was because the bootlegs of the OOT were curbing his plans to gold-plate his summer home. The OT is not some obscure experimental work you can destroy without notice; they are the films THAT CHANGED AMERICAN CINEMA FOREVER. Lucas needs to respect that, and clearly he hasn't in the last 15 years.