The jpegs don’t matter.

Microsoft builds TypeScript. It’s open source and people love it. They trust them and get all the updates from the official repo.

You fork the TypeScript repo. How do you get a community to care more about your fork than Microsoft’s? Good f’in luck. At best some users might want to see your changes make their way into the official repo some day. Your fork is POSITIVE for Microsoft.

This is the same situation with NFTs.

An artist releases an NFT collection. It’s open source and people love it. They trust the artist and decide to only care about the official smart contract.

You fork the smart contract. How do you get a community to care more about your fork than the original artists? Good f’in luck.

The jpegs don’t matter. They provide context. That’s it. My guess is the most popular collections will have a TON of forks that are also valued because people always want the next best thing if they can’t get the original.