“You own the image“ functionally doesn’t mean anything in the context of NFT’s because the image component in an NFT is not actually exchanging hands so there’s nothing to truly enforce here. It doesn’t grant exclusive rights and all that comes with it, it just gives them ownership rights - an artist can’t say the owner can’t use it for their own purposes. People can screenshot it, make memes of that, etc. and you have no legal recourse because you do not have exclusive rights to the actual work. They did nothing that violates your ownership. The NFT is you have a receipt that nobody can dispute that says “I own this receipt associated with this image and can use it as such.”

When I shoot video and give people a screener, I watermark it and have legal rights to the image/video content itself. They cannot duplicate it or use it in any fashion without risking legal action by me against them. NFT’s do not have that same protection. I can screenshot a bored ape image that someone “owns,” barely augment it, and mint a new NFT with no repercussions from the person who bought the original NFT. The original artist could come after me potentially because they have the actual exclusive rights to the creation, which again does not transfer with an NFT purchase.

In addition, you don’t even own the means to protect the receipt. If the blockchain goes down, your receipt is meaningless and you don’t even have exclusive rights to the image to sell or license out.

To give one more example: if I buy a video game, I have certain ownership rights associated with that disk. This is assuming physical copies of course. I can do whatever I want with that physical copy within the bounds of ownership of a distributed IP. I can snap it in half, I can back it up to a drive, etc. What I cannot do is make copies and distribute it because I have no rights to the IP, it has not been transferred to me with the purchase. The developer/publisher still has exclusivity, they control the IP. And if somebody else makes copies of my gave to be distributed, I have no legal recourse. This is really the key factor here. That law they’re breaking is not about my ownership, it’s about the game developer and publisher’s rights to the IP. They are the only ones who have legal recourse. NFTs, it’s the same way. The artist has all of the legal protections that come with IP ownership. Not the person who bought an NFT of the artwork.

TL;DR: NFT’s are buying receipts. They’re roughly as useful as “a certificate of authenticity“ they comes bundled with collectors items that were sold on infomercials in the 90s and 2000s. Except you don’t even get to store the certificate yourself, you’re dependent on somebody else