Watermarks

Watermarks are marks embedded in or applied to media to indicate ownership, authenticity, or provenance. They can be visible, appearing as logos or patterns over the content, or invisible, embedded within the signal so they are not perceptible to the viewer. The term has historical roots in papermaking, where a distinctive pattern could be seen when held up to light, identifying the paper maker.

In physical media, traditional watermarks are patterns impressed into the material itself and become visible when held to light. In digital contexts, watermarks refer to information embedded into a signal or file. Visible digital watermarks may take the form of overlaid logos or text, while invisible or forensic watermarks embed data to survive common transformations and still be detectable later. Watermarks serve purposes such as indicating copyright, identifying the source or recipient, and detecting tampering or unauthorized use.

Digital watermarking varieties include robust (designed to endure transformations like compression and resizing) and fragile (likely to break if the media is altered). There are blind watermarks, which can be detected without the original unwatermarked media, and non-blind watermarks, which require the original for extraction. Techniques used include spread-spectrum and frequency-domain methods (such as DCT or DWT), as well as quantization-based approaches. Watermarks can be applied to images, audio, video, documents, and software.

Detection and extraction range from simple visual inspection to algorithmic analysis that recovers the embedded payload. Applications span copyright protection, broadcast monitoring, provenance tracking, counterfeit deterrence, and forensic authentication. Ethical and legal considerations include consent, privacy, and the illegality of removing watermarks in many jurisdictions, as removal can undermine rights and legitimate enforcement efforts.