What's the difference then? An original oil painting and a replica differ quite clearly but I don't see the difference here between a digital image and the same digital image.
You're paying for the ownership rights and the benefits, if any, that come with the ownership
For example, Azuki NFT owners received 2 Beanz official NFT's on 4/27, which are worth combined over $30K
I have a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT but I purchased it after the airdrop a month and half ago of 10,094 Ape tokens which could have been sold for over $150K (currently worth a little over $110K)
There are also some real-life benefits, i.e. free hotel stay, access to VIP clubs, access to Apefest that takes place on a yacht, there's one coming up in June, but to be honest, I have no interest in participating on these real-life perks for OpSec reasons
There's speculation that Bored Ape owners may get an airdrop of Metaverse land, we shall see
So, to summarize, the pictures can be downloaded by anyone, but the ownership rights cannot be downloaded
