A Role for Digital Watermarking in Electronic Commerce

Neil F. Johnson, Zoran Duric and Sushil Jajodia. A Role for Digital Watermarking in Electronic Commerce, Accepted for publication ACM Computing Surveys in January 1999. Publication TBA.

Abstract:

Digital media are subject to illicit distribution and owners of such data are cautious about making their work available without some method of identifying ownership and copyright. Digital watermarks are employed in an attempt to provide proof of ownership and identify illicit copying and distribution of multimedia information. In this paper we briefly discuss the role of digital watermarking as a means of aiding in copyright and ownership issues. We present an overview of information hiding methods for digital media, propose a new way of categorizing watermark techniques through image modeling, and illustrate an alternative watermarking technique through the use of gradual masks. Attacks on watermarks are then discussed, and we propose a method for watermark recovery after attacks.