Multimedia watermarking techniques

TLDR

Multimedia watermarking has rapidly evolved, embedding imperceptible, robust digital watermarks that convey origin, status, or recipient information. This tutorial reviews the requirements and applications of watermarking. The paper outlines watermarking concepts, methods for images, video, audio, text, and other media, and discusses robustness and security for applications such as copyright protection, monitoring, and tracking. The authors note the current state‑of‑the‑art status and suggest future directions for watermarking technology.

Abstract

Multimedia watermarking technology has evolved very quickly during the last few years. A digital watermark is information that is imperceptibly and robustly embedded in the host data such that it cannot be removed. A watermark typically contains information about the origin, status, or recipient of the host data. In this tutorial paper, the requirements and applications for watermarking are reviewed. Applications include copyright protection, data monitoring, and data tracking. The basic concepts of watermarking systems are outlined and illustrated with proposed watermarking methods for images, video, audio, text documents, and other media. Robustness and security aspects are discussed in detail. Finally, a few remarks are made about the state of the art and possible future developments in watermarking technology.