Watermarking Protocols: A Short Guide for Beginners

Abstract

Watermarking protocols, in conjunction with digital watermarking technologies, make it possible to trace back digital copyright infringers by identifying who has legitimately purchased digital content and then illegally shared it on the Internet. Although they can act as an effective deterrent against copyright violations, their adoption in the current web context is made difficult due to unresolved usability and performance issues. This paper aims at providing researchers with the basics needed to design watermarking protocols suited to the web context. It is focused on two important aspects. The first concerns the basic requirements that make a protocol usable by both web users and content providers, whereas the second concerns the security primitives and how they have been used to implement the most relevant examples of watermarking protocols documented in the literature. In this way, researchers can rely on a quick guide to getting started in the field of watermarking protocols.

Blockchain and Smart Contracts for Digital Copyright Protection

“…Among the different solutions proposed over the years, "watermarking protocols" represent a convincing alternative [1]. Such protocols define the transaction schemes by which digital watermarked contents have to be traded through the Internet [2].…”

“…The result is that they achieve different results in terms of security and practicability for the web context. In particular, the protocols based on the well-known "buyer-seller" scheme [1,3] are characterized by high levels of security. However, they often fail to meet relevant design requirements, and this condition makes them impracticable in the current web context [1].…”

“…In particular, the protocols based on the well-known "buyer-seller" scheme [1,3] are characterized by high levels of security. However, they often fail to meet relevant design requirements, and this condition makes them impracticable in the current web context [1]. In this regard, a questionable issue of the implementation of buyer-seller watermarking protocols is represented by the involvement of "watermark certification authorities" (WCAs) acting as trusted third parties (TTPs) in the protection schemes [1,3,4].…”

“…However, they often fail to meet relevant design requirements, and this condition makes them impracticable in the current web context [1]. In this regard, a questionable issue of the implementation of buyer-seller watermarking protocols is represented by the involvement of "watermark certification authorities" (WCAs) acting as trusted third parties (TTPs) in the protection schemes [1,3,4]. In such schemes, the WCAs guarantee the transactions by which buyers get digitally watermarked contents from sellers.…”

“…These protocols improve security, but the absence of WCAs makes the participation of buyers in the purchase transactions difficult because of complex security actions. Consequently, such protocols are inadequate for the current web context [1].…”