Digital Watermarking: An Overview of Watermarking in the Context of Digital Rights Management

Abstract

In this work we present a basic overview of digital rights management technologies, focusing heavily on a technical understanding of digital watermarking and its applications in copyright protection. We discuss the basic attributes and functions of digital watermarks before proceeding to a discussion of watermark implementations in images and audio. Our discussion of implementations leads us to a brief overview of attacks that might be used to remove a watermark or render it unreadable, and from here we attempt to place the watermark in a legal context.