A system and method is provided for management of digital watermarks, including a system and method for identifying the source of counterfeit copies of multimedia works using layered simple digital watermarks which are difficult to locate, identify and circumvent. The layered digital watermarks may be modulated in a variety of ways, and may be individualized to assist in detection of unlawful copyrighted material infringement by endpoint device and/or the user committing the copyright infringement. In addition, multiple layers of watermarks may be selected and applied by various schemes, such as on-the-fly remotely by the distributor of the copyrighted material. This system and method for management of digital watermarks effectively makes it impossible for a potential copyright infringer to have complete confidence that they located and disabled all of the watermarks in the copyrighted material, and therefore substantially increases the risk of infringer identification and prosecution for copyright violations.

There is provided systems and methods for generating a multi-layered watermark. The watermark incorporating one or more symbols for placement on a document. The method including: positioning a base layer of the watermark at one or more locations on the document; positioning the one or more symbols overtop of at least a portion of the base layer; and positioning a braid layer of the watermark overtop of the ID, the braid layer and the base layer are substantially aligned, the braid layer including a copy of the base layer incorporating a pattern. The pattern can include one or more of discolorations, holes, and sections of increased opacity.

A method of encoding a watermark into a digital image is provided. The method includes partitioning an image into a plurality of blocks of a same size; accumulating the plurality of blocks of the same size into a single block image; performing a Fourier transformation on the single block image to obtain a two-dimensional Fourier spectrum defined by Fourier coefficients at different positions of a Fourier domain; inserting a watermark into a frequency domain of the two-dimensional Fourier spectrum by modifying the two-dimensional Fourier spectrum as a function of watermarking coefficients in the watermark, to obtain a modified Fourier spectrum; performing an inverse Fourier transformation on the modified Fourier spectrum to obtain a watermarked image; copying the watermarked image horizontally and vertically into a plurality of copied watermarked images; and splicing the plurality of copied watermarked images into a reconstituted watermark image.

A method of detecting a payload embedded using watermarking in a content stream, the payload being different in a first and a second segment of the content stream, a payload in the second segment having a predetermined relationship with a payload in the first segment, is described. The method selects a point in the content stream where the first segment is likely to end and the second segment to begin, samples the stream to obtain a first set of samples that is before the chosen point and a second set of samples that is after the chosen point, and detects the payload on a combination of the first set and a transformation of the second set, where the transformation is based on the assumption that the second set is from the second segment and exploits the relationship that exists between the payloads in the first and second segments.

This disclosure relates to advanced signal processing technology including steganographic embedding and digital watermarking. One combination disclosed in the description includes an apparatus comprising: memory storing an image comprising a plurality of color channels; means for locating image areas including an encoded signal with each color channel of the plurality of color channels, said means for locating identifying a plurality of image areas; means for generating one or more detectability measures corresponding to the encoded signal for each of the plurality of image areas; means for determining whether the encoded signal can be decoded from the plurality of image areas to obtain a plural-bit message component carried therein; means for selecting, per color channel, only one (1) image area as a validation point based on one or more generated detectability measures for that color channel, and based on whether the one (1) image area includes a decodable plural-bit message component; and means for generating information associated with a spatial location of each of the validation points in the image. Of course, other technology, features and combinations are described as well.

A method, computer system, and a computer program product for image capture prevention is provided. The present invention may include, in response to embedding at least one digital security mark in a visual communication, securing the visual communication. The present invention may also include preventing, based on the embedded at least one digital security mark, an image capture of the secured visual communication.

Methods, devices, and computer-program products are provided for adding data to a digital video signal in a visually imperceptible manner. For example, a region of pixels can be identified in a video frame, and one or more pixel characteristics of the region of pixels can be determined. Based on the one or more pixel characteristics of the region of pixels, at least one pixel characteristic of a subset of pixels from the region of pixels can be modified in order to encode a set of data into the region of pixels. An output frame can be provided that includes the modified at least one pixel characteristics for the subset of pixels.

Methods and apparatuses for watermark embedding and extracting are provided. A method for watermark extracting includes obtaining a carrier object embedded with a watermark image; determining at least one encoding region that includes watermark information; determining a plurality of template lattices from the at least one encoding region, the plurality of template lattices comprising a plurality of positioning template lattices and one or more encoding template lattices; and obtaining the watermark information according to the plurality of template lattices.

Systems and methods for applying and detecting cross dependent marks incorporated into an electronic or digital image to form a watermark. The electronic or digital image may include encoded information for example a machine-readable symbol. The watermarking may include an encoding and insertion sub-process that inserts one or more marks into an image at a first point in time for form a marked image, an extraction sub-process that extracts the marks at a second point in time, and a detection sub-process 108 that determines if any modifications have been made to the marked image. The marked image may be formed by determining a first original descriptor and first original mark within the image, determining a second original descriptor and second original mark within the image, and incorporating the first original mark into the second original descriptor and incorporating the second original mark into the first original descriptor.

Provided is an apparatus for embedding a plurality of forensic marks comprising: a pre-processing unit configured to: embed a watermark 0 symbol in each section content of an original content and store 0-section contents as a 0-content file and embed a watermark 1 symbol in each section content of the original content and store 1-section contents as a 1-content file; and embed random information in at least one section content among the 0-section contents and the 1-section contents and store random information section contents as a random information content file; and a distribution unit configured to: select corresponding section contents of the 0-content file and the 1-content file using predetermined information that is based on metadata; if a random information section content is present, select the random information section content instead of a 0-section content or a 1-section content; and output the selected random information section content as a distribution content.