Data processing apparatus and method, and storage medium therefor

• US 7,171,021 B2
• Filed: 03/14/2005
• Issued: 01/30/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/20/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Iwamura, Keiichi, Yoshida, Jun
• Primary Examiner(s): Wu; Jingge
• Assistant Examiner(s): GORADIA, SHEFALI DINESH
• Application Number:
  US11/078,376
• Publication Number:
  US 20050185820A1
• Time in Patent Office: 687 Days
• Field of Search: 382/100, 713/176
• US Class Current: 382/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/16 Program or content traceability, e.g. by watermarking
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/0021 Image watermarking

Abstract

The primary objective of the present invention is the prevention, or the detection, of an illegal act involving digital contents. To achieve this objective, whether an illegal procedure involving digital contents has been performed is determined based on results obtained by performing a predetermined operation for at least a part of the digital contents, and a predetermined process is performed for the digital contents in accordance with the results of determination.

Claims

1. A data processing apparatus comprising:

an input unit adapted to input a file that contains (i) digital contents in which a creation time of the digital contents was embedded as a digital watermark and (ii) an update time of the digital contents, wherein the update time is a time which is updated when a process is executed on the digital contents;

an extraction unit adapted to extract the creation time from the digital contents, and further to extract the update time from the file; and

a judgment unit adanted to compare the extracted creation time and the extracted update time with each other, and to judge, according to a compared result, whether or not an illegal process was executed on the digital contents.

2. A data processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said judgment unit judges that the illegal process was executed on the digital contents, in a case where a difference between the extracted creation time and the extracted update time is larger than a predetermined threshold.

3. A data processing method comprising:

an input unit adapted to input a file that contains (i) digital contents in which a creation time of the digital contents was embedded as a digital watermark and (ii) an update time of the digital contents, wherein the update time is a time which is updated when a process is executed on the digital contents;

an extraction unit adapted to extract the creation time from the digital contents, and further to extract the update time from the file; and

a judgment unit adapted to compare the extracted creation time and the extracted update time with each other, and to judge, according to a compared result, whether or not an illegal process was executed on the digital contents.

4. A data processing method according to claim 3, wherein said judgment step judges that the illegal process was executed on the digital contents, in a case where a difference between the extracted creation time and the extracted update time is larger than a predetermined threshold.

5. A computer-readable storage medium storing codes for a method comprising:

an input unit adapted to input a file that contains (i) digital contents in which a creation time of the digital contents was embedded as a digital watermark and (ii) an update time of the digital contents, wherein the update time is a time which is updated when a process is executed on the digital contents;

an extraction unit adapted to extract the creation time from the digital contents, and further to extract the update time from the file; and

a judgment unit adapted to compare the extracted creation time and the extracted update time with each other, and to judge to according to a compared result, whether or not an illegal process was executed on the digital contents.

6. An information processing system in which a digital watermark embedding device and an illegal process detection device are connected through a communication network, wherein:

said digital watermark embedding device comprises,

an embedding unit adapted to embed a creation time of digital contents in the digital contents as a digital watermark, and

a file creation unit adapted to create a file in which the digital contents and an update time of the digital contents are recorded, wherein the update time is a time which is updated when a process is executed on the digital contents; and

said illegal process detection device comprises,

an input unit adapted to input the file created by said file creation unit,

an extraction unit adapted to extract the creation time from the digital contents, and further to extract the update time from the file, and

a judgment unit adapted to compare the extracted creation time and the extracted update time with each other, and to judge, according to a compared result, whether or not an illegal process was executed on the digital contents.