Forensic watermark to curb Piracy effecively

forensic watermark (digital watermark)

A forensic watermark, also called a digital watermark, is a sequence of characters or code embedded in a digital document, image, video or computer program to uniquely identify its originator and authorized user. Forensic watermarks can be repeated at random locations within the content to make them difficult to detect and remove.

The main purpose of forensic watermarking is to protect the interests of content creators against illegal use and distribution of copyrighted digital works. While forensic watermarks cannot prevent such activity altogether, they can make it easier for copyright holders to detect it and to identify people who engage in it. A forensic watermark can alert honest users when they have received illegitimate documents or programs.

The main limitation of forensic watermarking technology is the occasional occurrence of false positives, in which legal copies of a document, image, video or program are tagged as unauthorized. This can happen when a used computer is traded and re-registered in the new user's name. It can also occur in certain cases when content becomes unintentionally corrupted or certain critical files are removed by hard disk cleanup or anti- spyware utilities.

Forensic watermarks have gained acceptance in the software and digital video industries. Other applications in which the technology hold promise include digital music and electronic books (e-books).

Forensics and Piracy Deterrence

Forensic watermark applications enhance a content owner's ability to detect and respond to misuse of its assets. Forensic watermarking is used not only to gather evidence for criminal proceedings, but also to enforce contractual usage agreements between a content owner and the people or companies with which it shares its content. It provides positive, irrefutable evidence of misuse for leaked content assets.

Watermarking can also complement digital rights management (DRM) in many situations, by balancing content owner copyrights with consumer fair use allowances. Watermarking can be effectively used with no restrictions on playback devices to maximize content promotional opportunities. Watermarking requires no costly recipient-support infrastructure requirements, post-delivery or ongoing support activities.

How It Works

At the least, a forensic application embeds the identity of a recipient into an asset copy at the time it is produced or transmitted. Sophisticated forensic applications embed situational metadata such as transmission time, received format, and recipient IP address. Some watermark applications embed a distinct forensic watermark at each stage of content distribution, enabling pinpoint accuracy.

When a leak is discovered or suspected, the forensic watermark retrieved from the leaked copy identifies the intended recipient and provides evidence — in the form of situational metadata — that the copy was delivered to its intended destination. The evidence can be used to trigger contractual provisions or as legal evidence in a criminal action.

Deterrence Effects

Simply knowing that a digital asset contains an embedded recipient identifier is enough to deter misuse by certain recipients. In 2008, the DWA commissioned a study on the piracy deterrent effects of watermarking. The results show that while forensic watermarking might not reduce piracy as a criminal enterprise, it has a significant reducing effect on casual piracy-incidental sharing within social groups and through user-generated content facilities.

Use of digital watermarking for forensics and piracy deterrence helps companies...

• Create a powerful deterrence from leaking controlled content either maliciously or unintentionally
• Quickly and accurately identify the source of leaked content
• Provide irrefutable evidence of content misuse in support of legal action
• Gain visibility over where and how their content is being accessed without the need of a complete DRM system to restrict access

Allu Aravind to sue PVR

Oh yes, you read it right. Allu Aravind of Geeta Arts has said that he will be suing PVR Cinemas, the Gurgaon branch for a sum of Rs 5 crore for enabling the piracy of Geeta Art's Telugu film '100% Love' that stars Naga Chaitanya and Tamannah in the lead roles. Even though the movie is a hit one, the news of pirated DVDs circling the market came as a blow to the team of '100% Love.'    Agreed, this has become quite usual these days of pirated DVDs hitting the market within a day of release of the movie, but the producers of '100% Love' chose not to ignore it, their anti-piracy teams confiscated some pirated DVDs and based on the forensic watermark in these copies, they understood that the master copy for this DVD has been shot at Screen 6, in PVR Cinemas, Gurgaon. Based on this evidence, Geeta Arts have claimed damages from PVR Cinemas, for the latter failing to protect their property and enabling a master copy to be recorded at their theatre, thus causing huge revenue loss for the production company. The producers said that it is now, through a technology termed 'forensic watermarking' one can identify the source of a pirated DVD as the makers will know which print was given to which theatre, thus understanding where the master copy has been shot! Interesting isn't it? Filmmakers and producers can now breathe a sigh of relief as theatres will take more caution against pirated copies being shot in their screens, thus reducing piracy. Look's like 'forensic watermarking' technology introduced to us through South Indian production company, 'Geeta Arts' is here to stay and will sure save the day for producers all over the country!