A Digital Image Copyright Protection Scheme Based on Visual Cryptography

Ren-Junn Hwang

doi:10.6180/jase.2000.3.2.04

A Digital Image Copyright Protection Scheme Based on Visual Cryptography

Computer Science and Information Engineering

Ren-Junn Hwang This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.¹

¹Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, TamKang University, Tamsui, Taipei Hsien, 251, Taiwan, R.O.C.

Received: January 1, 2000
Accepted: June 1, 2000
Publication Date: June 1, 2000

Download Citation: ||https://doi.org/10.6180/jase.2000.3.2.04

ABSTRACT

A simple and efficient watermark method is proposed in this paper. The watermark method is an excellent technique to protect the copyright ownership of a digital image. The proposed watermark method is built up on the concept of visual cryptography. According to the proposed method, the watermark pattern does not have to be embedded into the original image directly, which makes it harder to detect or recover from the marked image in an illegal way. It can be retrieved from the marked image without making comparison with the original image. The notary also can off-line adjudge the ownership of the suspect image by this method. The watermark pattern can be any significant black/white image that can be used to typify the owner. Experimental results show that the watermark pattern in the marked image has good transparency and robustness. By the proposed method, all the pixels of the marked image are equal to the original image.

Keywords: image watermark, visual cryptography, copyright protection.

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