Nothing is stopping you from creating a fake Bored Ape, just like nothing is stopping you from painting a fake Picasso. People who know how to read the blockchain or look for signs of forgery in paintings will be able to spot the difference between real and fake pretty easily, however.
Have yet to hear a single argument against NFTs that either
- doesn't also apply to the physical counterparts they are emulating, or
Here is one: A file that I right-click save to my disk is a 1:1 byte-to-byte identical copy of the original. My downloaded 'fake Bored Ape' is indeed not fake, it is the exact same picture, it is an immaculately perfect, pristine copy of the entire digital file, without mistakes, differences or flaws.
Meanwhile it is impossible to recreate a physical painting. Even the original creator cannot duplicate every single brushstroke, the exact color mixes, details and imperfections.
The difference lies in the difference of stealing digital files vs. stealing real objects. When you steal a file, you create a copy and the original owner still keeps his copy. In fact, it is impossible to know whether any of your files is guaranteed not to have been copied somewhere else. Meanwhile a physical object is either there or it's not. There is no way to duplicate it, you can only try to recreate it, but it will never be the exact same, identical
'thing'.
When you buy an NFT, you do buy the rights to a file, but you could do that just as easily without a blockchain. You can have a written contract from the artist / invoice proving you bought it. If someone copies it and uses it e.g. on their website, the blockchain won't help you against the 'theft', but you will need to sue the person. You can do that if you own the rights of digital media, and you could do that long before NFTs.
The bottom line is, NFTs don't - and, in fact, can't - solve a real problem. That is why many people deem them unnecessary.