Hello, I'm a new artist on tumblr, and I was recently accused of stealing my own art from deviantart because I used the watermarks on there, since I didn't know how to make my own, and I thought that it would protect it on tumblr. But are watermarks really the best way to make sure your art doesn't get stolen? And is there anything I can do to make sure people won't think I'm stealing my own art? Because it's quite frustrating.
The watermark doesn't really 'protect' it from getting stolen, it's just there to put your name on it so people know it's yours (which in this case kinda ironically backfired) People are still going to upload your work to zerochan or weheartit with or without the watermark, unfortunately.
That usually happens if your dA username and your tumblr username are different. People probably think that you stole it from dA because if you're the artist, you will have the version without dA watermark. Whereas if you just saved it from dA, it will have the watermark. (as far as I can remember that's how the watermark work? I haven't been in dA in decades)
A lot of artist on tumblr have their tumblr URL in the work (just somewhere on the bottom, it doesn't have to be a huge watermark like dA). Or you can also put your dA account name on your tumblr profile so people know it's you.
Any other artist can add to this?