You can think of NFTs as akin to Patreon. The thing is they are way better than Patreon. NFTs pay a perpetual royalty to the artist, and the few intermediaries

You can think of NFTs as akin to Patreon. The thing is they are way better than Patreon. NFTs pay a perpetual royalty to the artist, and the few intermediaries involved mean much smaller fees. Opensea takes only 2.5%. Art theft is an issue no matter how/where an item will be sold, but the IMO when people steal digital art and sell it as NFTs, it just validates the market for the artist it was stolen from. If those artists decided to sell NFTs they would make a killing and squeeze out the thieves.