A Digital Image Copyright Protection Scheme Based on Visual Cryptography

ABSTRACT A simple and efficient watermark method is proposed in this paper. The watermark method is an excellent technique to protect the copyright ownership of a digital image. The proposed watermark method is built up on the concept of visual cryptography. According to the proposed method, the watermark pattern does not have to be embedded into the original image directly, which makes it harder to detect or recover from the marked image in an illegal way. It can be retrieved from the marked image without making comparison with the original image. The notary also can off-line adjudge the ownership of the suspect image by this method. The watermark pattern can be any significant black/white image that can be used to typify the owner. Experimental results show that the watermark pattern in the marked image has good transparency and robustness. By the proposed method, all the pixels of the marked image are equal to the original image.

[1]  Gordon W. Braudaway,et al.  Protecting publicly available images with a visible image watermark , 1996, Electronic Imaging.

[2]  Yasuhiro Nakamura,et al.  Embedding a Signature to Pictures under Wavelet Transform , 1996 .

[3]  Walter Bender,et al.  Techniques for Data Hiding , 1996, IBM Syst. J..

[4]  Ja-Ling Wu,et al.  DCT-based watermarking for video , 1998 .

[5]  Hiroshi Masuda,et al.  Watermarking three-dimensional polygonal models through geometric and topological modifications , 1998, IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun..

[6]  Chin-Chen Chang,et al.  A watermarking technique based on one-way hash functions , 1999, IEEE Trans. Consumer Electron..

[7]  Ja-Ling Wu,et al.  Hidden digital watermarks in images , 1999, IEEE Trans. Image Process..

[8]  Ioannis Pitas,et al.  Applications of toral automorphisms in image watermarking , 1996, Proceedings of 3rd IEEE International Conference on Image Processing.

[9]  Xiang-Gen Xia,et al.  A multiresolution watermark for digital images , 1997, Proceedings of International Conference on Image Processing.

[10]  Frank Boland,et al.  Watermarking digital images for copyright protection , 1995 .

[11]  Akihiro Yamamoto,et al.  A Digital Watermark Technique Based on the Wavelet Transform and Its Robustness on Image Compression and Transformation , 1999 .

[12]  Kineo Matsui,et al.  Embedding a seal into a picture under orthogonal wavelet transform , 1996, Proceedings of the Third IEEE International Conference on Multimedia Computing and Systems.

[13]  Moni Naor,et al.  Visual Cryptography , 1994, Encyclopedia of Multimedia.

[14]  Ingemar J. Cox,et al.  Secure spread spectrum watermarking for multimedia , 1997, IEEE Trans. Image Process..

[15]  Ahmed H. Tewfik,et al.  Transparent robust image watermarking , 1996, Proceedings of 3rd IEEE International Conference on Image Processing.

[16]  Steven H. Low,et al.  Performance comparison of two text marking methods , 1998, IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun..