Copyright Protection through Digital Watermarking

Today, the Internet is a worldwide broadcasting capability, a mechanism for information dissemination and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals and their computers without regard for geographic location. With the rapid evolution of digital networks, digital libraries and World Wide Web (WWW) services, the convenient broadcasting or exposition of digital products on the global network leads easily to illegal copying, modifying and retransmission. The Internet has spawned many copyright issues involving multimedia content distribution. Let’s say an owner would like to sell or distribute a work to legal/registered users only. If the work were subsequently copied/redistributed illegally, how could the owner find who was responsible? Cryptographic techniques provide an effective solution for securing the delivery process and controlling the use of the contents that an user has obtained. However, with flawless transmission through the network, the contents after decryption are exactly the same as the original data. The contents can be copied perfectly infinite times. A user can also manipulate the contents. Digital watermarking (Arnold, Schmucker, & Wolthusen, 2003; Katzenbeisser & Petitcolas, 2000) offers a way to counter copyright piracy on global networks that are not solvable by cryptography. It provides proof and tracking capabilities to illegal copying and distribution of multimedia information. Most existing digital watermarking schemes are based on some assumptions for watermark detection and extraction. Some schemes require the previous knowledge of watermark locations, strengths or some thresholds. In some algorithms, the watermark is estimated with the help of the original watermark information. To ensure the robustness and invisibility of the watermark, the optimum embedding locations are usually different for different images. For a large image database, it could be a disadvantage to require watermark location and strength information for watermark detection and extraction. A large amount of information then needs to be stored. On the Internet, an owner would like to distribute multimedia data by signing different watermarks to different users in order to prevent illegal redistribution of the data by a legal user. In this scenario, watermark detection and extraction algorithms requiring information of either watermark embedding locations and strengths or the original watermark should fail, since one does not know exactly which watermark is embedded in a particular copy of the watermarked image. To this end, we present a new blind watermarking scheme (Yu, Sattar, & Ma, 2002; Yu & Sattar, 2003, 2005) based on Independent Component Analysis (ICA) (Hyvarinen, 1999; Hyvärinen & Oja, 1999; Lee, 1998) for color images, which can overcome existing problems of watermark detection and extraction as described above. The new ICA-based scheme is found to be efficient in the application of data tracking/tracing for multimedia distribution through the Internet against other digital watermarking schemes. By adopting this ICA-based watermarking scheme, an efficient multimedia distribution framework/protocol for copyright protection can be accomplished. This article is organized as follows: The watermark embedding and extraction algorithms for color image watermarking using the new ICA-based scheme are presented next, followed by a discussion and comments on the results, security issues, summary and future works.

This paper presents an intelligent scheme for robust digital watermarking of image. The inherent property of perfect reconstruction of dual complex tree wavelet transform and secret transform order in fractional Hartley transform is motivation to select these transforms. These transformation in 2D are used to generate a hybrid transform. The LL-sub band of this hybrid transform is further decomposed into SVD components for embedding watermark. Only LL-band of original image is required during watermark extraction and therefore is considered as semi- blind watermarking scheme. Experimental evaluation proves that the proposed scheme is robust against variety of attacks.

Multimedia contents have received a sharp attention now a day as a result of massive development of cyber crime. Illegal replication, violation of authentication, misappropriation of digital content has achieved an enigmatic growth. In this respect we’ve already proposed different schemes for invisible watermarking for color image authentication in fragile domain. In current communication we are going to propose a chip-based framework for color image authentication in accordance with our prescribed LSB scheme. In this watermarking scheme, a secret key will be given to the user and with the help of a particular hash function the user can authenticate the ownership of an image. With the aforesaid secret key and hash function the secured communication is guaranteed. The original watermark will not be retrieved if any intruder tries to perform watermark extraction with an inappropriate key and a incorrect hash function. We named our proposed chip as BLIND CHIP, because we’ve used blind method for watermark extraction where neither the host image nor the watermark image is needed at the time of watermark extraction.

Due to the rise in many industrial environment applications involving distributed networked collaborative intelligent measurement systems, intelligent monitoring and multi-sensor information exchange of private information, digital image information security and hidden image authentication, tampering detection, correction, and automatic intelligent self-recovery have become critical concerns. Towards that end, there is a need for more secure, efficient, and robust-to-unauthorized-tampering digital image watermarking, information hiding and authentication schemes. In our prior work, we introduced non-blind watermarking schemes where the carrier and watermark images are available at the receiver's end. We also proposed a double-blind scheme where both the carrier and the watermark images are not available at the receiver's end, but at the expense of possible lower pixel tampering, authentication and automatic intelligent self-correction ability. This paper proposes a blind wavelet-based, high capacity, secure digital watermarking and information hiding scheme with higher tampering localization and authentication that nullifies the need to have the carrier image available at the receiving end. The proposed scheme also increases robustness to image authentication and automatic self-recovery and correction compared to our prior double-blind scheme. The scheme is high capacity and sustains hiding secret hidden and watermarking images of the same full size as an arbitrary-sized carrier image. One of the benefits of the blind watermarking scheme is that it allows usage of varying and arbitrary carrier images that are unknown and unavailable anywhere, including the receiver's end. This is to prevent hackers' recognition of a familiar carrier image and their potential unauthorized tampering. Here, in this paper, two grayscale images are inserted in a colored carrier image. Here the watermark image is used for authentication and tamper localization. The second image is used as ownership or encoded secret hidden message image. The Arnolds Transform is used to introduce added security to a hidden image. The proposed scheme uses an embedded correction matrices mechanism for the extracted hidden information self-recovery from various tampering and digital attacks by unauthorized hackers.

We present a new scheme for digital watermarking and secure copyright protection of digital images using non-negative matrix factorization and singular value de-composition approaches. The proposed method improves the performance of the data embedding system effectively, and it is resistant to a variety of intentional attacks and normal visual processes. The experimental results clearly illustrate the much improved performance of the proposed watermarking methodology in comparison with existing techniques.

This chapter focuses on the issue of transaction tracking in multimedia distribution applications through digital watermarking terminology. The existing watermarking schemes are summarized and their assumptions as well as the limitations for tracking are analyzed. In particular, an Independent Component Analysis (ICA)-based watermarking scheme is proposed, which can overcome the problems of the existing watermarking schemes. Multiple watermarking technique is exploited—one watermark to identify the rightful owner of the work and the other one to identify the legal user of a copy of the work. In the absence of original data, watermark, embedding locations and strengths, the ICA-based watermarking scheme is introduced for efficient watermark extraction with some side information. The robustness of the proposed scheme against some common signal-processing attacks as well as the related future work are also presented. Finally, some challenging issues in multimedia transaction tracking through digital watermarking are discussed.

In recent years, with the rapid development of internet, digital data has been widely used in various science and engineering applications. But, this development has also led to several threats and attacks from the intruders. Most of the organizations are very much concerned about the Illegal copyright activities which have become a series issue. A number of copyright protection schemes have been developed in the literature. Watermarking is one of the best known methods for copyright protection. Earlier Bit Error Rate (BER) is been observed to provide good results for choosing the optimal feature region from the watermarked image. However it fails to produce more accurate image quality measures. This research work mainly focuses on a novel technique implemented based on the simulated attacking approach and the GA-based Multi Dimensional Knapsack Problem (MDKP) solving technique to select the most sufficient feature regions for robust digital image watermarking without affecting the image quality. A major limitation in existing methods is the security problems which lead to decrease in the integrity of digital watermarking scheme. With that problem, the definite optimization problems (variant problems) cannot be resolved using genetic algorithms. To focus on the above mentioned problems, the proposed work uses two approaches. Chaotic Iterative Process encryption scheme is used to solve the security problems for watermarking image. Next, the optimal feature points can be chosen from the watermarked image by Modified version of Peak Signal Noise Ratio (MPSNR). MPSNR is based on the enhanced quality measurement of which point opposes the predefined and undefined attacks. With those two approaches the PSO algorithm is employed as a search strategy for identifying an optimal feature subset. The experimental results illustrates that comparing with various well-known feature-based techniques, the proposed method shows better performance in robust and more secure digital watermarking.

Quantization parameter based blind watermarking schemes are very popular. These schemes work in spatial domain as well as in various transform domains such as wavelet, discrete cosine, and real oriented wavelet. These schemes utilize one bit (binary) image as a watermark. However, in general, watermarks are any n bit image, where n ≥ 1. Therefore, these schemes are not suitable for the watermarks with n > 1. In this paper, we extend the existing work on blind watermarking schemes for n bits watermark images. The ‘division algorithm’ is used as a key component to develop the extended schemes. The proposed scheme is implemented in spatial domain. Experiments are done on one bit, two bits and eight bits watermark images. The results are investigated qualitatively by visualization, and measured quantitatively by peak-signal-to-noise-ratio (PSNR) and normalized correlation coefficient (NC). The results of the existing and proposed watermarking schemes are same for n = 1. The results of the proposed watermarking scheme are reliable for n > 1. A formula is proven for lower bound on PSNR, which is a key finding in the watermarking community. The formula is verified experimentally.

This paper presents an objective MPEG-2 video quality measurement method based on fragile digital image watermarking. Based on the DWT-based watermarking scheme, this paper presents a fragile digital video watermarking scheme that can work as an automatic quality monitoring system. We embed watermark in the DWT domain of the I-frames of an original video, and the DWT coefficients for embedding are carefully selected so that the degradation of the watermark can reflect the degradation of the video quality. This scheme can track the change of the PSNR value and the Watson JND value. The Watson perceptual model is taken into account to weight the quality measurement according to the human visual system. The evaluations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme against MPEG-2 compression and noise pollution

With the rapid access convenience of content brought by 5G technology, the integrity protection of content becomes more important. The reversible visible watermarking algorithm has attracted more attention due to its effective content protection. In this paper, a novel improved reversible visible image watermarking scheme based on gradient-weighted class activation mapping (Grad-CAM) and the just noticeable difference (JND) model has been presented. The proposed region of interest (ROI) selection strategy is used to locate the main protected body of images for watermark embedding. Divide the watermark and ROI into nonoverlapping blocks in the same way and then embed the classified two types of watermark blocks into corresponding ROI blocks with the JND model. The optimal bit positions for watermark embedding can be selected adaptively with JND threshold and achieve the tradeoff between the watermark visibility and watermarked image quality. For lossless image recovery and watermark extraction, the recovery information is reversibly hidden into watermarked image. In the experiments, the same process of grayscale images is used to each channel separately for color images watermarking. Besides, there are six aspects in this paper to estimate the proposed scheme; with the comparison to other reversible visible watermarking schemes, experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed scheme.

A new method of video scene content characteristic detection is proposed. This method can be applied in conjunction with digital watermarking schemes in order to improve the transparency. In addition, new methods of video watermarking are also proposed. Three related original aspects are reported. First, the authors' previous robust image watermarking methods, which consider the block texture are extended into video. In the detection process, watermark extraction with or without the original frame is provided. Secondly, a method is proposed to improve imperceptibility by reducing the flickering effect. Finally, a method is introduced to detect video scene characteristics in order to suit the particular embedding scheme. By doing so, the embedding method can be chosen adaptively in accordance with the video scene. The subjective tests illustrate an imperceptibility improvement and experiments with various attacks show the watermarking robustness.

Digital watermarking is an application associated with copyright protection. Any digital object can be used as a carrier to carry information. If the information is related to object then it is known as a watermark which can be visible or invisible. In the era of digital information, there are multiple danger zones like copyright and integrity violations, of digital object. In case of any dispute during rights violation, content creator can prove ownership by recovering the watermark. Two most important prerequisites for an efficient watermarking scheme are robustness and security. Watermark must be robust and recoverable even if a part of content is altered by one or more attacks like compression, filtering, geometric distortions, resizing, etc. In this work, we propose a blind watermarking scheme based on the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and singular value decomposition (SVD). Singular values (SV’s) of high frequency (HH) band are used to optimize perceptual transparency and robustness constraints. Although most of the SVD-based schemes prove to be robust, little attention has been paid to their security aspect. Therefore, we introduce a signature-based authentication mechanism at the decoder to improve security. Resulting blind watermarking scheme is secure and robust.

Complete complementary code can be applied to digital watermarking technologies as well as communication systems like approximately synchronized CDMA because of its good correlation properties. In this paper, we propose a blind watermarking algorithm which does not need to refer any original data in the watermark extraction process. We also discuss the analogy between the proposed watermarking scheme and CT-CDMA communication systems based on complete complementary codes. In addition, some extensions of the proposed watermarking method and future problems are discussed in the paper.

The main objectives of digital image watermarking schemes are to provide acceptable level of both imperceptibility and robustness for wide variety of host and watermark images. To support watermarking scheme in accomplishing these objectives, suitable watermark strength is identified in the form of scaling factor using Dynamic-PSO (DPSO) for colored images. A non-blind, DWT-SVD-based watermarking scheme is used to embed watermark in host image. Results achieved through DPSO are compared with PSO and other widely accepted variants of PSO. Experiment results demonstrate that performance of underline watermarking scheme when used with DPSO is better than other variants of PSO.

Presented is an efficient watermarking scheme using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to watermark host fingerprint images with their corresponding facial images in the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) domain. PSO is used to find the best DCT coefficients’ locations in the host image where the facial image data can be embedded, so that the distortion produced in the host image is minimum. The objective function for PSO is formulated in terms of the Structural Similarity Index (SSIM) and the Orientation Certainty Level Index (OCL) so as to base it on the simple visual effect of the human visual perception capability and correct minutia prediction ability. The results exhibit better watermarked image quality while retaining the feature set of the original fingerprint. Moreover, the proposed technique is robust so that the extraction of watermark is possible even after the watermarked image is exposed to attacks. As a result, at the receiver’s end, the watermarked fingerprint image and the extracted facial image can be verified for a secure and accurate biometric based personal authentication.