On the hybrid multi-watermarking

Multi-watermarking is the technique to embed multiple messages into the same media content repeatedly. It can be used to identify media content's ownership or trace the illegal redistributors in media distribution. However, some performances of multiple watermark embedding, e.g., the distortion and security, are not considered carefully in the previous work. In this paper, the application scenario and framework of hybrid multi-watermarking are figured out, which show the secure media distribution model suitable for hierarchical media distribution. Additionally, the multi-watermarking based on hybrid multiplicative rule is firstly proposed and then analyzed theoretically with respect to two cases, i.e., the multi-embedding of same watermark sequence and the multi-embedding of different watermark sequences. The analysis emphasizes on four aspects, i.e., robustness, capacity, distortion and security, each of which considers two cases, i.e., the authorized embedding and unauthorized embedding. What is more, the locally optimum detector for multi-watermarking of hybrid multiplicative rule is reduced, and some potential attacks are investigated. Additionally, for each case, some suggestions are proposed to improve the system's performance. Finally, some comparative experiments are done, and results are given to show the validity of the theoretical analysis.

► The application scenario and framework of the hybrid multi-watermarking are figured out. ► The multi-watermarking based on hybrid multiplicative rule is firstly proposed. ► The performance of the hybrid multi-watermarking is analyzed from two aspects and four points. ► A novel locally optimum detector based on the hybrid multi-watermarking is proposed.