Title of Invention

WATERMARK EMBEDDING METHOD AND ARRANGEMENT

Abstract

The present invention relates to an arrangement for embedding a watermark in an information signal id disclosed. In order to make the embedded watermark more robust against hacking, a property of the watermark is randomized (11) which is irrelevant for the watermark detection. One example is randomizing (111) the magnitudes (abs) of the Fourier transformed watermark. Another example is randomly shifting the spatial or temporal position of the watermark with respect to the signal at a relatively low temporal frequency. The invention allows embedding (13) of spatially different watermarks without affecting the performance of a detector. (fig 1)

Full Text

Watermark embedding method and arrangement FIELD OF THE INVENTION The invention relates to a method and arrangement for embedding a watermark in an information signal. More particularly, the invention relates to embedding a watermark in a motion video signal. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Watermarking is a technique to certify the ownership of (digital) information content By imperceptibly hiding a watermark in the content, it is possible to prevent piracy and illegal use of this content Typical applications include copy protection for digital audio and video, and broadcast monitoring. The watermark, typically a given pseudo random noise sequence, is usually added to the content in the original (temporal or spatial) signal domain. Most currently used watermark detection methods are based on correlating the suspect signal with the pseudorandom noise sequence. If the correlation exceeds a given threshold, the watermark is said to be present An example of a prior-art watermark embedding method is disclosed in International Patent Application WO-A-99/45707. The prior-art method relates to watermarking a motion video signal. For complexity reasons, the same watermark is embedded in every image (field or frame) of the video signal. To reduce the complexity even more, a small watermark pattern is tiled over the image. A typical tile size is 128x128 pixels. At the detection side, the tiles of a number of images are folded into a 128x128 buffer. Detection is then performed by correlating the buffer contents with the small watermark . pattern. The pseudo-random noise sequence is a secret key. When a hacker knows the sequence and the embedding algorithm, he can obtain an estimate of the embedded watermark, for example, by adding a large number of tiles. He can then remove the watermark by subtracting the estimated sequence from the watermarked signal. OBJECT AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the invention to provide a method and arrangement for mbedding a watermark in a more secure manner. To this end, the method of embedding a watermark in an information signal is ;haracterized by embedding different versions of said watermark in successive portions of he information signal, said versions being different with respect to a property which is rrelevant for detection of said watermark. The invention is based on the recognition that detection methods are often nvariant with respect to predetermined properties of the embedded watermark. For example, lie prior-art detection method disclosed in the above-cited International Patent Application WO-A-99/45707 is invariant with respect to the magnitudes of the Fourier transformed image. In accordance therewith, the magnitudes of the Fourier coefficients of the watermark are chosen randomly in a first embodiment of the invention. The prior-art detection method is also shift-invariant Accordingly, the step of generating different versions of the watermark includes randomly shifting (for example, at a low temporal frequency) the spatial position of the watermark with respect to the video image in a second embodiment of the invention. Another watermark detection method, proposed in Applicant's European Patent Application 99203143.5 (not yet published) is invariant to scaling and rotation of the embedded watermark. In combination with such a detector, the embedded watermark may be randomly scaled and/or rotated. It is thus achieved with the invention that a range of watermarks is embedded, which watermarks are different in the signal domain but will be seen as the same by the detection algorithm. UK Patent Application GB 2 325 765 discloses a method of hiding data in a video signal, in which method frame patterns of differing block patterns are embedded in the video frames. A random element is introduced into a block pattern. More particularly, a specific block pattern is randomly added to and subtracted from the video signal at the same location of each frame. A detection pattern is used that does not include the random element. The random element causes +1 or -1 to appear at random at the output of the detector. The detector does not appear to be invariant with respect to the sign of the embedding operation. This prior-art document therefore does not disclose randomizing a property which is irrelevant for detection of the watermark. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a first embodiment of an arrangement for embedding a watermark in a video signal in accordance with the invention. Fig. 2 is a diagram illustrating the operation of a payload encoder which is shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 3 shows a watermark embedded in a video signal by the arrangement which is shown in Fig. 1. Figs. 4 and 5 show alternative embodiments of the arrangement which is shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 6 shows a watermark embedded in a video signal by the arrangements which are shown in Fig. 4 or 5. Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of an arrangement for detecting a watermark in a suspect video signal. Figs. 8 A and 8B show correlation patterns illustrating the operation of the detector which is shown in Fig. 7. Fig. 9 is a schematic diagram of a second embodiment of an arrangement for embedding a watermark in a video signal in accordance with the invention. Fig. 10 shows a watermark embedded in a video signal by the arrangement which is shown in Fig. 9. Figs. 11A and 1 IB show correlation patterns illustrating the operation of the detector which is shown in Fig. 7. DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The invention will be described with reference to embedding a watermark in motion video signals. It will be appreciated that the description may equally be applied to other types of information signals. Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a first embodiment of an arrangement in accordance with the invention. The arrangement is a further improvement of the embedder disclosed in International Patent Application WO-A-99/45707, The arrangement receives a motion video signal X and outputs a watermarked video signal Y. It comprises a payload encoder 10, a property randomizer 11, a tiling circuit 12, and an adder 13. Fig. 2 illustrates the operation of the payload encoder 10. A watermark pattern W is obtained by adding a limited set of uncorrelated ftbasic" watermark patterns (Wl, W2) and cyclically shifted versions (W2k) thereof. In this example, the encoder 10 generates W=Wl+W2-W2k where W2k is a cyclically shifted version of basic pattern W2. rhe signs and shift vectors (k) represent a payload K. To reduce complexity, the watermark pattern W has a relatively small size of MxM (e.g. 128x128) pixels. It is tiled over the larger NlxN2 image area by the tiling circuit 12. In the prior-art arrangement, the same watermark tile W is tiled over the image. Moreover, the same watermark WM is embedded in successive frames of a motion video signal. The arrangement, which is shown in Fig. 1, includes a property randomizer 11. The watermark tile W to be embedded is herein subjected to a Fast Fourier Transform 110. The Fourier coefficients have a magnitude abs and a phase The property randomizer 11 produces a different watermark pattern W for each tile of the image. Fig. 3 shows the watermark WM after the tiling operation 12. In this Figure, the property which is irrelevant for the detection process (i.e. the magnitudes of the Fourier coefficients) is represented by the line style. This property differs from tile to tile. The property which is relevant for the detection process (Le. the phases of the Fourier coefficients) is represented by the respective symbols and is the same for each tile. The watermark tiles are different in the spatial domain and are therefore difficult to hack. Fig. 4 shows an alternative embodiment of the watermark embedder with which the same effect is achieved. This embodiment differs from that shown in Fig. 1 in that the property randomizing operation is individually applied to the basic watermark patterns Wl and/or W2 before encoding the payload. For each basic watermark, a respective property randomizer 13,14 is used which is similar to randomizer 11 in Fig. 1. Fig. 5 shows a variant of this embodiment Herein, the basic watermark patterns are defined in the Fourier domain rather than the spatial domain. More particularly, the basic watermarks Wl and W2 are defined in terms of the phases It should be noted that the property randomizers 13,14 (Fig. 4) and 15,16 (Fig. 5) need not be physically present in the respective embedders. It is possible to pre-store a plurality of randomized versions of each basic watermark pattern in the embedder. In that case, the embedder (randomly) selects one of the stored versions for each image tile. Fig. 6 shows the tiled watermark WM generated by the embodiments shown in Figs, 4 and 5. The watermark differs from that shown in Fig, 3 in that the basic pattern Wl, on the one hand, and the patterns W2 and W2k, on the other hand, are differently randomized. For completeness of the disclosure of the invention, the operation of the watermark detector will now be briefly summarized. A more detailed description can be found in International Patent Application WOA-99/45707. Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of the arrangement The detector partitions (20) each image of a suspect video signal Q into blocks of size MxM (M=128) and stacks (21) all the blocks in a buffer B of size MxM. This operation is known as folding. To detect whether or not the contents q of the folding buffer B include a particular (possibly shifted) basic watermark pattern w (Wl or W2), the buffer contents and said basic watermark pattern are subjected to correlation. Both the contents q of the buffer and the basic watermark pattern w are subjected to a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) in transform circuits 22 and 23, respectively. These operations yield: where q and w are sets of complex numbers. Computing the correlation is similar to computing the convolution of q and the conjugate of w. In the transform domain, this corresponds to: where the symbol ® denotes pointwise multiplication and conJO denotes conjugation. The conjugation (inverting the sign of the imaginary part) of w is carried out by a conjugation circuit 24, and the pointwise multiplication is carried out by a multiplier 25. Note that FFT 23 and conjugation 24 of the applied watermark W can be pre-computed and stored in a memory. The Fourier coefficients d are complex numbers. As disclosed in International Patent Application WO-A-99/45707, the reliability of the detector is significantly improved if the magnitude information is thrown away and the phase is considered only. To this end, the detector includes a magnitude normalization circuit 26, which pointwise divides each coefficient by its magnitude: where O denotes pointwise division. An MxM pattern of correlation values d={dk} is now obtained by inverse Fourier transforming the result of said multiplication: inch is carried out by an inverse FFT circuit 27. The basic watermark pattern W is detected > be present if a correlation value dk is larger than a given threshold. Fig. 8A shows that the IxM correlation pattern exhibits a strong positive peak 80 at the origin (0,0) if the basic watermark Wl is applied to the arrangement. The location (0,0) of the peak indicates that the patial position of the applied watermark pattern corresponds to the spatial position of the mbedded watermark in the folding buffer. Fig. 8B shows that the correlation pattern exhibits . strong positive peak 81 at the origin (0,0) and a strong negative peak 82 at another location f the basic watermark W2 is applied to the arrangement The relative distance between, and he signs of, peaks 81 and 82 represent the shift vector k A payload decoder 28 (Fig. 7) dentifies said shift vector k and decodes the corresponding payload data K. A potential hacker will obtain an estimate of the phases of the watermark when he adds a large number of tiles. He may mislead the detector by choosing random magnitudes for the watermark and then subtracting the estimated watermark from the watermarked video signal. However, this will introduce artifacts because the embedded watermark is spatially different from the estimated watermark-Fig, 9 is a schematic diagram of a further embodiment of the watermark embedder in accordance with the invention. In this embodiment, the property of the watermark WM being randomized is its spatial position with respect to the image area. To this end, the arrangement comprises a position randomizer 19. In this example, the randomizer is located between the tiling circuit 12 and the adder 13. Alternatively, the randomizer may be positioned between payload encoder 10 auid tiling circuit 12. Fig. 10 shows a tiled watermark WM' generated by this embodiment It has been cyclically shifted by a vector s compared with the watermark WM shown in Figs. 3 and 6. Advantageously, the position is modified from frame to frame at a relatively low frequency. Figs. 11A and 1 IB show the MxM correlation patterns if the basic watermark patterns Wl and W2, respectively, are applied to the detector. The peaks 80-82 have been shifted by the vector s compared with the peaks shown in Figs. 8A and 8B. However, the relative distance between, and the signs of, the peaks representing the shift vector k (and thus the payload data K) have not been changed The embodiments described above (randomizing of magnitudes and randomizing of position) may be advantageously combined. In summary, an arrangement for embedding a watermark in an information signal is disclosed. In order to make the embedded watermark more robust against hacking, a property of the watermark is randomized (11) which is irrelevant for the watermark detection. One example is randomizing (111) the magnitudes (abs) of the Fourier-transformed watermark. Another example is randomly shifting the spatial or temporal position of the watermark with respect to the signal at a relatively low temporal frequency. The invention allows embedding (13) of spatially different watermarks without affecting the performance of a detector. WE CLAIM : 1. A method of embedding a watermark in an information signal, characterized by the step of randomizing the magnitudes of the Fourier coefficients of said watermark, to obtain different versions of said watermark and by the step of embedding said different versions of said watermark in successive portions of the information signal. 2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the watermark comprises at least one basic watermark pattern being tiled over the portion of the information signal, said step of randomizing the magnitudes being applied to the Fourier coefficients of said basic watermark pattern. 3. A method of embedding a watermark in an information signal characterized by the step of randomizing the position of the watermark with respect to the respective portion of the information signal, to obtain different versions of said watermark and by the step of embedding said different versions of said watermark in successive portions of the information signal. 4. The method as claimed in claim 1 or 3, wherein said successive portions of the information signal are successive frames of a motion video signal. 5. An arrangement for embedding a watermark in an information signal comprising means (11; 13, 14; 15, 16) for randomizing the magnitudes of the Fourier coefficients of said watermark, in order to obtain different versions of said watermark and means (12.13) for embedding these different versions of said watermark in successive portions of the information signal. 6. An arrangement for embedding a watermark in an information signal comprising means (11; 13, 14; 15, 16) for randomizing the position of the watermark with respect to the successive portions of the information signal in order to obtain different versions of said watermark and means (12, 13) for embedding these different versions of said watermark in successive portions of the information signal. 7. An arrangement as claimed in claim 5 or 6, wherein said successive portions of the information signal are successive frames of a motion video signal.

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in-pct-2002-278-che-abstract.pdf

in-pct-2002-278-che-claims.pdf

in-pct-2002-278-che-correspondance other.pdf

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in-pct-2002-278-che-description complete .pdf

in-pct-2002-278-che-drawings.pdf

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