@Background Pony #E316
 
2 months late. good job.

added appropriate tag.

@alidan  
Still not theft.  
Still hypocricitical.

@Transparentist  
you work in a legal grey area as a fan artist, technically everything you do is illegal and the only legal thing you have on your side is defenses not any law itself.  
someone wants you screw you over, they take you to court, you get sunk in 20-180k$ of legal fees and when you win you now have to sue the other party for legal fees, as they are not guaranteed so another potential LARGE loss, and that’s assuming your defendant has the ability to pay.
 
Its more or less an unwritten rule that you don’t get anything happening to you till you start getting into small business territory, japan is funny in the way that they do have small and large businesses around technical copyright infringement that are 100% illegal but they don’t do anything about it. I remember a person who wrote make money off prints he was making, and he was only really told to knock it off once he started going over 6 figures, not even sued, just told legally stop.
 
I always find it annoying when people who make things that either take from others, or set their things in a pre established world get really pissy when someone takes what they made and its damn near always the same type of person.

@alidan  
It’s not theft, it’s not stealing, it’s copyright infringement.  
But yes i agree with most of that.
 
While i think asking for permission for edits is good conduct i think its highly hypocritical for artists who care very strongly about being asked first, to make any form of content based on other works.
 
If you care about consent you can’t make fanart unless you get license to do so from the right holders.  
Otherwise you are a hypocrite.

@Transparentist  
There is a point where the theft matters, lets say you want to sell the art and someone gets it for free, that matters a bit  
you make something like a hug pillow and someone else steals it and sells the same thing competing with you
 
its annoying when someone’s crops out your name or photoshops it out.
 
but the only time I ever see people complaining about theft or doing something drastic to like the step above is when people are making art for an existing property, make an oc in said property, or are furries. there is some weird way these groups/people think that makes them believe this is a massive issue and they aren’t also somewhat in the wrong with their art themselves… ill also give a nod to manga scanlation where places were making money off free translations
 
@Transparentist  
With the big deviantart art logo in the center, you can get that template and effectively remove it altogether easily. the rest can either be done away with some light… what is that tool called, the patchwork one. or a texture brush and some time.
 
there is an image of anime nuns that no one could ever source the original and I wanted to remove the jesus would not approve macro, so I did, my edit still gets passed around as a source image, point being is you cant make a watermark obtrusive enough to deter someone from removing it unless you also destroy the art itself.
 
you want people to not steal, fine, put up low resolution images to deviant art that cant be vectored, and put your high resolution ones behind a paywall, put your name inside the art somewhere where its hard to remove without looking altered.

<3

@barbeque  
But this kind of watermark is the worst not just because of how intrusive it is but also because of how much more easy it is to remove.
 
The process is literally the same as the process of fixing skin on an image, you work with patterns from other places and light/darkness variations.
 
While a Standard signature doesnt obstruct the art and is much more unlikely that anyone would even remove it.
 
But yeah other than that thing it looks great.

This was bloody beautiful, a motherfucking masterpiece really, until that OBTRUSIVE WATERMARK. Zargh!

I can understand why some artists use watermarks like these (yes, I personally dislike them as well) but deviantart is a cesspool when it comes to art theft. On derpibooru, if they’re at least edit-savvy enough to not have the dupe detector pick it up automatically, someone will sooner or later comment/report and link the original. If the artist is not (known) to have an account here, we send them a note on dA that someone is stealing their art.
 
The problems on dA are much bigger:  

@alidan  
i actually did the same thing, faved but downvoted.
 
Although about your second part, there’s nothing inherently wrong about caring about art theft.  
It’s when you are actively paranoid about it that it’s an issue. (As in deterimental to yourself)
 
(Although personally I’d prefer using the proper term of “copyright infringement as it is not stealing)

@Background Pony #8EFE  
Your ability to draw said art is like a fingerprint when you hit a certain level of talent.  
All obtrusive watermarks do is annoy people off, look at that, I favorited and downvoted this on for it.
 
but I kind of find it funny how people who complain about art theft are always the people who never draw something origional themselves, make ‘oc’s’ for existing properties, or are furries of some description. probably makes me a bit of a douche saying it that bluntly but oh well.

having a giant horn pushed in your face when your own horn is broken… not sure if that is arousing or not :)

@Background Pony #8EFE  
“safer” literally everyone can still “steal” it.  
Literally all it does is downgrade the abilit to view the picture in the first place.
 
If someone is claiming they made something you made you can quite simply report those people and pooof, they gone.

@Background Pony #F1BC  

@Transparentist  
So apparently they used to have their own watermark but they say art thieves ruined it for them and they think it’s safer with the DA watermark.

@Transparentist  
Wow. Someone’s really angry about watermarks.
 
Let the artist do what they chose. The art belongs to them, and nobody has the right to tell them what to do with it.

Best ship.

@Transparentist  
Sorry but i chose the “Antisocial” perk, so i can’t do that.

@Background Pony #8EFE  
Then you should inform them that that feature is unlocked by default and doesnt require you to level up your artist.  
rpgs yay

@Transparentist  
I’ve been thinking about it, and i think the artist might think that they need to reach a certain amount of fame to unlock the “self-made watermark”.

@Background Pony #F1BC  

Quite an adorable shipping picture of these two.
 
And I respect the artist’s right to protect their art using a a watermark. The image is still clearly visible and it prevents others from easily being able to claim the work as their own.

God fucking damn it! This is such a good piece of art! Why must it have an OBTRUSIVE WATERMARK?!

I wish I could see you over this OBTRUSIVE WATERMARK.