Or because they are ignorant, scared and facing a technological disruption that might threaten the value of the original, which is the very reason the museum exists. You get a similar dynamic with over-enthusiastic corporate takedown notices.

I read it like this: the museum wanted to safely preserve the original so they made a digital copy and hid it in a drawer. The author pointed out this was not lawful, and the museum panicked because they intended it as a digital copy protected similarly to the original. So, commendations to the appeals court for identifying the key philosophical issue; regrets that they ignored the actual law.