Digital watermarks for audio signals

TLDR

Watermarking embeds copyright or other information into digital media, requiring the watermark to be imperceptible and robust against attacks and distortion. The study proposes a novel technique for embedding digital watermarks into audio signals. The method generates a watermark by filtering a PN‑sequence with a filter that models the human auditory system’s frequency masking, then applies temporal masking weighting in the time domain. Detection experiments demonstrate that the watermark remains robust against various attacks and signal manipulations.

Abstract

We present a novel technique for embedding digital "watermarks" into digital audio signals. Watermarking is a technique used to label digital media by hiding copyright or other information into the underlying data. The watermark must be imperceptible or undetectable by the user and should be robust to attacks and other types of distortion. In our method, the watermark is generated by filtering a PN-sequence with a filter that approximates the frequency masking characteristics of the human auditory system. It is then weighted in the time domain to account for temporal masking. We discuss the detection of the watermark and assess the robustness of our watermarking approach to attacks and various signal manipulations.