NFTs are a (highly problematic) attempt to do this without a central authority: there's no reason not to have an authority, so we can use regular old public-key cryptography.

Why are NFTs highly problematic? I'd argue that a central authority is highly problematic as it will end up looking like the existing Google / Apple marketplaces with no ability to resell, etc. Removing the central authority would allow organic resale markets for form, etc rather than "approval" blocking any real technical progress.

"Central authority" in this case would be the equivalent of the property registry that governments maintain. Since governments are also the ones who actually protect your abstract property rights when it comes to that, there's no reason for this registry to exist on a blockchain.