Is ASCII Art Open Source?

Some people get peeved because I don’t offer my art in a plain text file. I don’t like having my ASCII ripped off, as it so often and easily is. So, for the past few years, I only post an image file (a .png screen capture from NotePad). It still gets ripped off because people like to assume any ASCII art is free, like free software in price and availability. One person even claimed, "no one owns ASCII art".
I don’t want people to assume it is free. Not free in price. Not free in value and not freely available to be copied or taken. Each person is different in this way. I do not see my ASCII art as free software. I’m not that generous. Mostly, I don’t like feeling taken advantage of when someone else is using my art and it makes me angry when it is being sold, or given away in a product without any consideration to myself. Financial consideration yes, also at the very least, an artist credit. How stingy is someone who takes something offered to them, claims it as their own and sells it at a profit to themselves only?
I would rather ASCI art was open source (the image file which at least still has my artist initials rather than the text file so easily "edited"). Any image online is pretty much open source, whether the artist likes it or not. Watermarks can be removed with software or scissors.
If it were possible, I wouldn’t have ASCII Art as open source either. Respect the ASCII artist, any artist, don’t steal art! You may want to think it is all open source, the person who created the art probably does not see it that way.