Using multipe watermarks to protect content material

• US 20030056101A1
• Filed: 09/20/2001
• Published: 03/20/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Epstein, Michael
• Granted Patent: US 7,398,395 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/176
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/018 Audio watermarking, i.e. embedding inaudible data in the audio signal
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/00086 Circuits for prevention of unauthorised reproduction or copying, e.g. piracy indicating unauthorised use of record carriers in general G11B23/28; scrambling for television signal recording H04N5/913; network architectures or network protocols for network security H04L63/00; cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for secret or secure communication H04L9/00
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/00905 multiple watermarks used in combination
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/0092 involving measures which are linked to media defects or read/write errors

Abstract

Content material is protected with a variety of watermarking processes. Different subsets of the protected content material are submitted to different watermarking processes. At the rendering device, a watermark detector is configured to detect one or more different watermarks. Only if the particular watermark(s) that the rendering device is configured to detect is removed from the protected content material will the rendering device permit the rendering of the protected material. If the particular watermark(s) that the rendering device is configured to detect is unpredictable, or if the particular segment that is protected by a particular watermark is undetectable, a wholesale removal of specific watermarks from the watermarked material will neither be efficient nor economically viable.

Claims

1. A watermark encoding system comprising:

a plurality of watermark systems,

each watermark system being configured to provide a different type of watermark, and

a watermarking selector that is configured to receive content material and to provide therefrom watermarked content material comprising at least two different types of watermarks,

wherein,

the watermarking selector identifies a first segment of the content material for watermarking via a first watermark system of the plurality of watermark systems, and a second segment of the content material for watermarking via a second watermark system of the plurality of watermark systems.

4. The watermark encoding system of claim 1, wherein

a size of the first segment is determined based on at least one of:

a random process, and

the first watermark system.

2. The watermark encoding system wherein

the watermarking selector is configured to effect the selection of the first and second watermark systems based on a random process.

3. The watermark encoding system of claim 2, wherein

the random process is biased in favor of selecting one or more select watermark systems.

5. A method of manufacturing rendering devices, including:

providing a plurality of different watermark detectors,

providing a plurality of rendering devices, and

selectively placing one or more of the plurality of different watermark detectors in each of the plurality of rendering devices.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein

selectively placing the one or more of the plurality of different watermark detectors in each of the plurality of rendering devices is based on a random process.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein

the rendering device is configured to render watermarked content material that is contained in one or more of the following media:

a Compact Disk,

a Digital Video Disk,

a Dataplay disk,

a Superaudio CD,

a flash memory,

a memory stick, and

a SD card.

8. A media for communicating watermarked content material, comprising

a segment of the watermarked content material that is encoded with a first type of watermark, and

at least one other segment of the watermarked content material that is encoded with an other type of watermark, the other type of watermark being different from the first type of watermark.

9. The media of claim 8, wherein

a size of the segment of the watermarked content material is based on at least one of:

a random process, and

the first type of watermark.

10. The media of claim 8, comprising at least one of:

a Compact Disk,

a Digital Video Disk,

a Dataplay disk,

a Superaudio CD,

a flash memory,

a memory stick, and

a SD card.

11. The media of claim 8, comprising

a computer file.

12. A method of watermarking content material, comprising:

identifying a segment of the content material,

encoding the segment of the content material via a first watermarking process, to form a first watermarked segment,

identifying an other segment of the content material,

encoding the other segment of the content material via a second watermarking process that differs from the first watermarking process, to form a second watermarked segment, and

combining at least the first watermark segment and the second watermarked segment to form multiple-watermarked content material.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising

randomly selecting at least one of the first watermarking process and the second watermarking process from a plurality of watermarking processes.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein

identifying the segment includes identifying a size of the segment.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein

identifying the size of the segment is based on at least one of:

a random process, and

the first watermarking process.

16. A watermark detection device comprising:

a first detector that is configured to detect a first type of watermarking, and

at least one other detector that is configured to detect at least one other type of watermarking.

17. The watermark detection device of claim 16, further comprising

a detection selector that is configured to select one of the first detector and the at least one other detector for detecting a watermark associated with watermarked content material.

18. The watermark detection device of claim 17, wherein

the detection selector is configured to select one of the first detector and the at least one other detector via a random process.

19. A method of manufacturing a product that is configured to control rendering of watermarked content material comprising:

randomly selecting a watermark detector from a plurality of watermark detectors,

configuring the selected watermark detector to control the rendering of the watermarked content material, based on a detection of a watermark in the watermarked content material by the selected watermark detector.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the product includes at least one of:

a CD player,

a DVD player,

a memory device player, and

a Dataplay player.