System and methodology for tracing to a source of unauthorized copying of prerecorded proprietary material, such as movies

• US 6,285,774 B1
• Filed: 06/08/1998
• Issued: 09/04/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 06/08/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Digital Video Express LP
• Inventors: Bugwadia, Kobad, Iu, Siu-Leong, Schumann, Robert W., Ehrhardt, Jack, Bergeron, Michael, Ramadoss, Shiva, Mercier, Guillaume
• Primary Examiner(s): Johns, Andrew W.
• Application Number:
  US09/092,898
• Time in Patent Office: 1,184 Days
• Field of Search: 382/232, 382/233, 382/235, 382/239, 382/244, 382/100, 348/413, 348/416, 348/699, 348/460, 348/473, 380/201, 380/202, 380/210, 380/216, 380/217, 380/287, 380/54
• US Class Current: 382/100
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/00 Methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2005/91335 the copy protection signal being a watermark
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/913 for scrambling ; for copy protection
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8227 the additional signal being at least another television signal

Abstract

To enable the source of an unauthorized copy of an information-bearing medium, such as a video DVD, to be traced, a compressed digital signal stream to be stored on the medium is altered to include “running marks,” that comprise pixel blocks changing in position frame by frame and encoded with information designating where and when the copy was made. The medium under test is played back synchronously with a reference medium containing the locations of the running marks together with original video. The source of copying message is advantageously encrypted and scrambled to avoid detection or alteration by a copyist. The message preferably is spread, for example into a spread spectrum carrier, to enhance discrimination among a large number of sources and enable demodulation in the presence of noise.

Claims

1. A method of processing an information-bearing compressed digital signal stream, produced by an information signal source, to be recorded on an original recording medium, to mark information content of the information-bearing signal stream so as to enable tracing to a source of unauthorized copying of the information-bearing compressed digital signal stream from the original recording medium, comprising:

receiving an original compressed, digital signal stream during playback of the original recording medium;

receiving a predetermined modification stream derived from said original compressed digital signal stream;

obtaining a source-of-copying message corresponding to a source of playback of said original compressed digital signal stream from the original recording medium; and

producing a modified signal stream by modifying the original compressed digital signal stream to include the source-of-copying message using the predetermined modification stream.

2. The method as described in claim 1, wherein the modified signal stream is reproduced on a second recording medium, including:

reproducing the modified signal stream during playback of the second recording medium; and

comparing the original information-bearing compressed digital signal stream with the modified signal stream, and extracting the source-of-copying message.

3. The method as described in claim 1, wherein the information-bearing compressed digital signal stream is a video signal, and wherein modifying the compressed digital signal stream comprises modifying a characteristic of an image produced by said compressed digital signal stream.

4. The method as described in claim 3, wherein said compressed digital signal is pre-encoded in an MPEG compression standard.

5. The method as described in claim 4, including selecting at least one area of a video frame for modification, and modifying the selected video frame area.

6. The method as described in claim 5, including storing an address of a selected video frame area.

7. The method as described in claim 6, wherein selecting is performed on a basis of an image attribute of an image within the video frame.

8. The method as described in claim 7, wherein the image attribute is an image boundary.

9. The method as described in claim 6, including replacing the selected frame area with a modified frame area corresponding to said source-of-copying message.

10. The method as described in claim 9, including conditioning the selected frame area prior to replacement thereof by a modified frame area.

11. The method as described in claim 10, wherein said frame areas comprise pixel blocks or macroblocks.

12. The method as described in claim 5, including selecting different frame areas of subsequent frames for modification in correspondence to said source-of-copying message.

13. The method as described in claim 1, including encrypting said source-of-copying message prior to modification of said compressed digital signal stream.

14. The method as described in claim 1, including scrambling the source-of-copying message prior to modification of said compressed digital signal stream.

15. The method as described in claim 1, including encoding said source-of-copying message to produce a spread spectrum carrier prior to modification of said compressed digital stream.

16. A method for processing a compressed digital information in the form of an original MPEG encoded signal stream played back from an original prerecorded medium to enable tracing of unauthorized copying of the signal stream from the medium, comprising:

producing an original medium storing information in an MPEG standard together with preselected pixel block locations, within video frames, for data bits pertaining to information describing a subsequent playback of the original medium;

receiving the MPEG data stream during said subsequent playback of the original medium; and

producing a modified signal stream by modifying the MPEG signal stream to embed said subsequent playback information in pixel blocks corresponding to the preselected pixel block locations.

17. The method as described in claim 16, including

comparing a content of the original signal stream with that of the modified signal stream played back from a recording medium suspected to be an unauthorized copy of the original medium to extract the playback information.

18. The method as described in claim 16, wherein the playback information includes one or more of the following:

recording medium identification, reproduction device identification and time of data stream reproduction.

19. The method as described in claim 16, including selecting at least one area of a frame as a message area for modification, and modifying the selected area.

20. The method as described in claim 19, wherein selecting is performed on a basis of an image attribute.

21. The method as described in claim 20, wherein the image attribute is an image boundary.

22. The method as described in claim 19, including replacing the selected frame area with a modified frame area designating an element of said playback information.

23. The method as described in claim 22, including conditioning the selected frame prior to replacement by a modified frame area.

24. The method as described in claim 22, wherein only B-frames of the MPEG data stream are selected as frame areas for replacement.

25. The method as described in claim 19, including selecting different areas of subsequent frames for modification.

26. The method as described in claim 19, wherein said areas comprise pixel blocks or macroblocks.

27. The method as described in claim 26, including scrambling pixels blocks or macroblocks prior to embedding the playback information into the MPEG signal stream.

28. The method as described in claim 16, including encrypting the playback information prior to modifying the MPEG signal stream.

29. The method as described in claim 16, including encoding said playback information to produce a spread spectrum carrier prior to modifying said MPEG signal stream.

30. The method as described in claim 16, including error correcting the playback information prior to modifying the MPEG signal stream.

31. A system for processing compressed digital information in the form of an MPEG encoded signal stream played back from an original recording medium to enable tracing of unauthorized copying of the signal stream from the original medium, comprising:

a detector for obtaining a source-of-copying message pertaining to a source of playback of the original medium containing the compressed signal stream;

a receiver for receiving the MPEG signal stream upon playback from the original recording medium and for receiving a predetermined modification stream derived from said original compressed digital signal stream; and

a combiner for embedding the source-of-copying message in the MPEG signal stream using the predetermined modification stream.

32. The system as described in claim 31, including a memory for storing locations of pixel blocks among selected video frames of the MPEG encoded signal stream.

33. The system as described in claim 31, including a scrambler for scrambling the source-of-copying message received by the detector.

34. The system as described in claim 31, including an encryption unit for encrypting the source-of-copying message received by the detector.

35. The system as described in claim 31, including an encoder for encoding said source-of-copying message to produce a spread spectrum carrier prior to embedding with said MPEG signal stream.

36. A method of processing a data stream in the form of a compressed digital signal copied from an original data stream, to enable tracing to the source of copying, comprising:

receiving the original data stream;

locating message holes of prescribed size in predefined, non-regularly occuring locations in the original data stream; and

extracting from said data stream a source-of-copying message embedded at said message holes.

37. A method for processing a data-bearing digital signal to be recorded on a storage medium so as to enable tracing an unauthorized copy of the data to a copyist, comprising:

receiving a digital signal stream bearing data by playing back the stream from a medium on which the digital signal stream is stored;

receiving a predetermined modification stream derived from said original compressed digital signal stream;

obtaining a source-of-copying message pertaining to the source of playback of said data;

producing a spread spectrum carrier bearing said source-of-copying message; and

combining the encoded source-of-copying message with said digital signal stream using the predetermined modification stream.

38. The method as described in claim 37, wherein the digital signal stream is compressed.

39. The method as described in claim 38, wherein the digital signal stream is encoded in an MPEG compression standard.