DIGITAL WATERMARKING

ABSTRACT
Also referred to as simply watermarking, a pattern of bits inserted into a digital image, audio or
video file that identifies the file's copyright information (author, rights, etc.). The name comes
from the faintly visible watermarks imprinted on stationery that identify the manufacturer of the
stationery. The purpose of digital watermarks is to provide copyright protection for intellectual
property that's in digital format.
Unlike printed watermarks, which are intended to be somewhat visible, digital watermarks are
designed to be completely invisible, or in the case of audio clips, inaudible. Moreover, the actual
bits representing the watermark must be scattered throughout the file in such a way that they
cannot be identified and manipulated. And finally, the digital watermark must be robust enough
so that it can withstand normal changes to the file, such as reductions from lossy
compression algorithms.
Watermarking is also called data embedding and information hiding. [1]
Digital watermarking may be used for a wide range of applications, such as:

Copyright protection

Source tracking (different recipients get differently watermarked content)

Broadcast monitoring (television news often contains watermarked video from

international agencies)
Video authentication
Software crippling on screencasting programs, to encourage users to purchase the full
version to remove it. [3]

INTRODUCTION

Digital watermarking is the act of hiding a message related to a digital signal (i.e. an image,
song, video) within the signal itself. It is a concept closely related to steganography, in that they
both hide a message inside a digital signal. However, what separates them is their goal.
Watermarking tries to hide a message related to the actual content of the digital signal, while in
steganography the digital signal has no relation to the message, and it is merely used as a cover
to hide its existence. Watermarking has been around for several centuries, in the form of
watermarks found initially in plain paper and subsequently in paper bills. However, the field of
digital watermarking was only developed during the last 15 years and it is now being used for
many different applications.
The information to be embedded in a signal is called a digital watermark, although in some
contexts the phrase digital watermark means the difference between the watermarked signal and
the cover signal. The signal where the watermark is to be embedded is called the host signal. A
watermarking system is usually divided into three distinct steps, embedding, attack, and
detection. In embedding, an algorithm accepts the host and the data to be embedded, and
produces a watermarked signal.
Then the watermarked digital signal is transmitted or stored, usually transmitted to another
person. If this person makes a modification, this is called an attack. While the modification may
not be malicious, the term attack arises from copyright protection application, where third parties
may attempt to remove the digital watermark through modification. There are many possible
modifications, for example, lossy compression of the data (in which resolution is diminished),
cropping an image or video, or intentionally adding noise.
Detection (often called extraction) is an algorithm which is applied to the attacked signal to
attempt to extract the watermark from it. If the signal was unmodified during transmission, then
the watermark still is present and it may be extracted. In robust digital watermarking
applications, the extraction algorithm should be able to produce the watermark correctly, even if
the modifications were strong. In fragile digital watermarking, the extraction algorithm should
fail if any change is made to the signal.
One application of digital watermarking is source tracking. A watermark is embedded into a
digital signal at each point of distribution. If a copy of the work is found later, then the
watermark may be retrieved from the copy and the source of the distribution is known. This
technique reportedly has been used to detect the source of illegally copied movies. [1] [2]

REFERENCES

[1]. Frank Y. Shih: Digital watermarking and steganography: fundamentals and techniques.
Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton, FL, USA, 2008

[2]. Melinos Averkiou, Digital Watermarking. p.1(PDF). Source:

https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/0910/R08/work/essay-ma485-watermarking.pdf.

[3]. Raju Halder, Shantanu Pal, and Agostino Cortesi, Watermarking Techniques for Relational
Databases: Survey, Classification and Comparison (PDF), The Journal of Universal Computer
Science, vol 16(21), pp. 3164-3190, 2010.