What's worse than uninformed bullshit posted as an "article" on the Internet?
Uninformed bullshit that then gets picked up, summarized in a modern game of telephone via a retarded summary, compounding the uninformed bullshit to complete horseshit, and then posting it on /.
There are bits of truth in there, but since this is all speculation on everyone's part until Disney announces anything (or Lucas/Fox spills the beans, see below), It's easier to just lay it out instead of trying to refute/correct all the inaccuracies in both the summary and the "article":
There have been industry rumors (reported by sites such as Digital Bits) that Disney has been working on these since practically when the deal was signed, as it was the obvious first place to start the machine going as pre-pre-production on Episode VII was just starting and they needed to set to work on getting the franchise in order. They are stressed as "insiders are talking" - but since the post-production/restoration community is pretty small, usually where there is smoke, there is fire. When a group is sitting and working on a film day and night, it's difficult to hide.
It makes perfect sense; Disney is going out of their way to realign the direction of the franchise with the OT - toy and novelty manufacturers have been directed to wind down Prequel products, they are going out of their way to let folks know that they aren't shooting on digital. They are emphasizing the real-models are being built as opposed to overly relying on CGI, etc. Lucasfilm has been so focused on selling to kids for years, to dwindling merchandizing success, and Disney, who knows if they go after the adults and nostalgia, from their own business experience (theme parks, etc.) - the kids will come along for the ride (and just to make sure, Rebels is coming for them to explain). This is exactly the target audience that will gladly replace their 2011 Blu-ray sets with a big brand new one from Disney in Christmas 2015, just in time for Episode VII. So yes, still a rumor - but personally I have no doubt we will have the unaltered OT on Blu-ray next year. Oh, and let's not forget that virtually the entire surviving cast is hanging out in London together as we speak - they've never contributed anything signifigant in terms of "extras" before individually (Carrie and Anthony did a partial commentary on the OT, really only a few minutes - everyone else, nada), much less as a group. Sounds like an opportunity to me...
As to the rights issues - there have been a couple of semi-mainstream articles (which really have just been opinion/speculation pieces) about the "Fox thing" as this one does (likely they all are just referencing each other), but it's pretty much assumed by all evidence that those issues no longer exist.
To begin with, only Star Wars itself was ever affected in terms of ownership. You can read all about it in quite a few books, but long story short (too late!) Fox pretty much made the biggest studio blunder of all time - they insisted on heavier ownership of the original film, but as every good geek knows, Lucas negotiated the rights to both merchandising and sequels (which the studio gave up as there was no such thing as modern merchandising until Lucas invented it, and Hollywood had seen very few successful sequels, especially for low-budget "sci-fi" which is how they saw Star Wars). The rights demands went back and forth during financial troubles on both the original sequels as he worked to finance them himself (you can read the entire story, with memos from the Lucasfilm archives, in the Rinzler "Making of" books recently released), but in the end - Lucas came out on top. Way on top.
So at one point, Fox technically owned Star Wars, Lucas owned the sequels, and Fox had an ongoing agreement to distribute the films (which was fine with Lucasfilm as they weren't a distributor). Then, the special editions/prequels happened. It had long been rumored that somewhere in between the special editions and the prequels, with box office and the merchandising coming back bigger than ever, Lucas wrangled back the ownership of Star Wars itself.
Lucas had no obligation to Fox for the prequels, he could have shopped them around to any distributor he wanted - and since he financed the films himself, he held all the cards. No deal was ever made public, but even back then there were rumors that somewhere in the agreements that were made for the prequels, Lucas got Star Wars back - the studios stood to make much more money from the prequels than they would ever really make off that one film itself, especially since they couldn't do much with it without Lucasfilm and the power of the rest of the franchise content. Sometime between the SE's and the next home video release, the "fine print" credits on the film were adjusted, depending on which edition - Fox is now listed only as distributor which is what makes it generally accepted that in fact, the rumors were true. At the least there was a flat-rate "royalty" (probably something tiny like 1 or 5%) perpetually built in - but since they wanted the prequels so badly, and to not have to share profits with another distributor on any home video releases, it wouldn't be surprising if they just completely relinquished it as a sign of good will to get the larger pie.
TL;DR? - There is almost no chance the rights are an issue at this point, and it's doubtful Disney would have paid the price they did if they didn't get everything - lock, stock, and stormtrooper - these issues were settled long ago.
Finally, as to the technical issues with rescanning the OT, at least some commenters in the article are pointing folks to SecretHistoryOfStarWars.com, and the extremely comprehensive/meticulously researched "The Special Edition Restoration Process and it's Changing Physicality" article. It's getting a little outdated at this point, but it basically explains the entire state of the film elements and what was done to them.
The original negative (the O-Neg, which is what ran through the camera during filming) was badly damaged (it even had "Tatooine" sand in it), but was restored - and then this perfectly restored film was cut to hell to make the SE's because digital scanning wasn't good enough at the time to do what Lucas was trying to do. They had to do it all physically, by hand (re-compositing shots with the SE stuff shat on film and processed over it). But...unless they tossed the original elements after (which has about zero chance of having occurred), between that and the no-fade Technicolor Dye Prints and other elements (IP's, etc.) there should be no problem restoring the film. Lucas even admitted in 2011 when questioned at a press conference for the Blu-ray releases why the unaltered OT wasn't included - he confirmed it was entirely possible, it just would cost a few million bucks and he didn't have any desire to do it.
There is really little doubt that Disney has their crack restoration team all over this. I wouldn't be surprised if they were done. This wasn't actually that big of a project - I mean, it's not like what CBS is doing with Star Trek: TNG and having to literally recreate every episode from the original dailies they randomly have stored in hundreds of boxes, pretty much scanning everything and piecing it together by digital "hand". Now that is a massive undertaking. Disney just paid 4 billion dollars for Star Wars - a few million to get the demanded versions of the films to offer in a package to get folks to buy the same films they just bought a few years ago will be worth it for them. The existing Blu-ray release is pretty light on extras, including the glaring omission of the Empire of Dreams documentary, which is the crown jewel of OT extras - it's clear now Lucas held them back so the new owners could put together the "box set to end all box sets" to sell next year before the new film comes out, and then in five more years (2020, once the new trilogy is completed) - hey, time for another "box set to end all box sets".
One thing is for certain, Disney is sure gonna give us a lot of options to spend our money and make that 4 Billion worth it for them. And unlike the misleading headline and the information provided, there is no reason Disney "can't" do whatever they damn well please with the films at this point. Even Iger has said in interviews that it was tough for George to give all control up - but Disney made it clear they wouldn't be paying this amount of money for anything but.