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The painting example isn't valid. There's 1 original painting that only 1 person (or group) can own. Anyone who buys a print has something fundamentally different than I do; I have the painting hanging in my house. With a digital image, there isn't an original: all copies are equivalent (save for compression)

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Actually, that would almost approach some "real" value for NFTs...

Let's say you have digital artwork in a lossless format. You then take the world by storm with the compressed version. Everyone loves it. You sell an NFT with a hash/URI/encoding of the original uncompressed version encrypted so only the owner on the blockchain can decrypt it.

Needlessly to say, this would only work for digital art that is compressible. The owner could perhaps prove that they really own the original by showing a differently compressed version of it.

The creator of the lossless one can also just decide to distribute that lossless version after selling an NFT of it.

Doesn't that defeat the point of only the NFT owner having control of it?

Yep. DRM can only go so far. Physical goods inherently have scarcity but digital goods don't

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