Plagiarism In The New Age QUESTIONS

So are you saying I'm not a competent artist? Since people have taken my works and erased my name off of it? I don't think being competent has anything to do with theft...

 

Competency has a lot to do with theft of original works.
Those not competent to do it tend to steal from others. When they are up against a wall in needing to do something with it (edit, for instance) they will usually move on to steal something else and try again.
There are saying about criminals. Most revolve around spending half the time to actually do something, rather than the full time of stealing, they would realize being legit is way easier than stealing.
There are legions of people stealing works and self publishing, but most don't do well because the person stealing doesn't know the difference between crap and quality, or something not finished and a completed work.
Most industries have these same fears, but you can't let it bother you or you will never grow. Instead you will end up as one of those people that never leaves home, due to fears, and spends their lives talking about what they could have done.

 

I've had to learn how to watermark my work or place my signatures in places where it would damage the art to have it removed. Which I hate to do in the first place. Since my goal was to learn digital art though eventually signatures won't be needed because things can be set in the metadata. But I feel like watermarking takes away from the art sadly.