1 A comparison of copyright protection of authors and performing artists Abstract The main objective of this thesis is to provide the reader with a complex overview of the rights of authors and performing artists including the tools of their legal protection as well as a comparison of their rights. The thesis is divided systematically into eleven chapters that includes introduction and conclusion. The first chapter includes introduction which provides information about objectives of this thesis. The main purpose of the second chapter is to define rights of authors and performing artists in the system of law including description of basic aspects mutual to both groups of rights. The third chapter deals with sources of international, European and domestic sources of law regulating these rights. In the fourth chapter I pay attention to characterize the terms author's work and artistic performance, i.e. objects of the rights of authors and performing artists and their defining characteristics. In the fifth chapter I focus on characteristic of subjects of these rights. The sixth chapter deals with the subject matter of these rights, i.e. moral and economic rights that belong to authors and performing artists to their author's works and artistic performances. The seventh chapter focuses on the license agreement,...

Copyright Protection and the Use of Computer Programmes Abstract In this diploma thesis, the author deals with copyright protection and the use of computer programmes. The aim of the work is to create the most comprehensive overview of the substantive law protection of computer programmes, including issues of use of a computer program by persons other than its author. The work is divided into three parts. The first, most extensive part (chapters 1-7) is devoted to the mentioned comprehensive overview of the substantive regulation of copyright protection of computer programmes. Part of this part is a short excursion into the history of computer programmes and related principles of legislation at the international and European level. The following is the definition of a computer program, including a brief explanation of how computer programs are created and what their functionality is. After that, the author deals in detail with the rights that are created to the software author by creating the software, always on specific cases from practice. The following is the issue of granting and exercising copyright in software, if it is created by a larger group of people who may act in different legal relationships. The sixth chapter discusses in detail the possibilities of using computer programmes by people other...

Heterogeneous consumers make the decision to buy a durable good or to download a replica, and a monopolist chooses to price and protect their intellectual property in the form of an authentication cost. An optimal price and authentication cost is derived, and shown to be higher than the efficient outcome for a uniform distribution of consumers. The optimal selection of price and protection are shown to be commensurate with his authenticating technology, and the searching ability of consumers. As an extension, a layout for a monopolist problem where consumers have different searching abilities is shown to be indistinct from a homogeneous case when consumers are uniformly distributed.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Information and Communication Sciences, Department of Computing, 2008. / Bibliography: p. 144-153. / Introduction -- Background -- Overview of watermarking -- Natural language watermarking -- Software watermarking -- Semi-blind and reversible database watermarking -- Blind and reversible database watermarking -- Conclusion and future research -- Bibliography. / Digital watermarking has generated significant research and commercial interest in the past decade. The primary factors contributing to this surge are widespread use of the Internet with improved bandwidth and speed, regional copyright loopholes in terms of legislation; and seamless distribution of multimedia content due to peer-to-peer file-sharing applications. -- Digital watermarking addresses the issue of establishing ownership over mul-timedia content through embedding a watermark inside the object. Ideally, this watermark should be detectable and/or extractable, survive attacks such as digital reproduction and content-specific manipulations such as re-sizing in the case of images, and be invisible to the end-user so that the quality of the content is not degraded significantly. During detection or extraction, the only requirements should be the secret key and the watermarked multimedia object, and not the original un-marked object or the watermark inserted. Watermarking scheme that facilitate this requirement are categorized as blind. In recent times, reversibility of watermark has also become an important criterion. This is due to the fact that reversible watermarking schemes can provided security against secondary watermarking attacks by using backtracking algorithms to identify the rightful owner. A watermarking scheme is said to be reversible if the original unmarked object can be regenerated from the watermarked copy and the secret key. / This research covers three multimedia content types: natural language documents, software, and databases; and discusses the current watermarking scenario, challenges, and our contribution to the field. We have designed and implemented a natural language watermarking scheme that uses the redundancies in natural languages. As a result, it is robust against general attacks against text watermarks. It offers additional strength to the scheme by localizing the attack to the modified section and using error correction codes to detect the watermark. Our first contribution in software watermarking is identification and exploitation of weaknesses in branch-based software watermarking scheme proposed in [71] and the software watermarking algorithm we present is an improvised version of the existing watermarking schemes from [71]. Our scheme survives automated debugging attacks against which the current schemes are vulnerable, and is also secure against other software-specific attacks. We have proposed two database watermarking schemes that are both reversible and therefore resilient against secondary watermarking attacks. The first of these database watermarking schemes is semi-blind and requires the bits modified during the insertion algorithm to detect the watermark. The second scheme is an upgraded version that is blind and therefore does not require anything except a secret key and the watermarked relation. The watermark has a 89% probability of survival even when almost half of the data is manipulated. The watermarked data in this case is extremely useful from the users' perspective, since query results are preserved (i.e., the watermarked data gives the same results for a query as the nmarked data). -- The watermarking models we have proposed provide greater security against sophisticated attacks in different domains while providing sufficient watermark-carrying capacity at the same time. The false-positives are extremely low in all the models, thereby making accidental detection of watermark in a random object almost negligible. Reversibility has been facilitated in the later watermarking algorithms and is a solution to the secondary watermarking attacks. We shall address reversibility as a key issue in our future research, along with robustness, low false-positives and high capacity. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / xxiv, 156 p. ill. (some col.)

Orientador: Alexandre César Rodrigues da Silva / Resumo: Com a crescente evolução dos equipamentos eletrônicos, muitos dados digitais têm sido produzidos, copiados e distribuídos com facilidade, gerando uma grande preocupação com a sua segurança. Dentre as várias técnicas usadas para proteger os dados digitais, tem-se as técnicas de inserção e extração de marca d'água em imagens digitais. Uma marca d'água pode ser qualquer informação como, por exemplo, um código, um logotipo, ou uma sequência aleatória de letras e números, que vise garantir a autenticidade e a proteção dos direitos autoriais dos dados. Neste trabalho, estudou-se sobre as técnicas existentes de inserção e extração de marca d'água digital, abordando desde seu conceito até o desenvolvimento de algoritmos de inserção e extração de marca d'água em imagens digitais. Desenvolveu-se um método para aumentar a robustez de técnicas de marca d' água digital pela decomposição da imagem em duas partes: estrutural (áreas homogêneas) e de detalhes (áreas com ruídos, texturas e bordas). Contudo, a marca d'água é inserida na parte de detalhes por se tratar de áreas menos afetadas por operações de processamento digital de imagens. Os resultados mostraram que o método proposto aumentou a robustez das técnicas da marca d'água testadas. Baseado nos resultados obtidos, desenvolveu-se uma nova técnica de marca d'água digital, utilizando a transformada discreta de wavelets, a decomposição de imagens e a transformada discreta do cosseno. / Abstract: With the increasing evolution of technological equipment, many digital data have been easily produced, copied and distributed by generating a great concern for their security. Among the various techniques used to protect the digital data, there are techniques for inserting and extracting a watermark into digital images. A watermark can be any information, such as a code, a logo, or a random sequence of letters and numbers, aiming to ensure the authenticity and copyright protection. In this work are studied, existing insertion and extraction techniques in digital watermarking, by covering from its concept to the development of watermark insertion and extraction algorithms, in digital images. A method was developed to increase the robustness of digital watermarking techniques by decomposing the image into two parts: structural (homogeneous areas) and details (areas with noises, textures and edges). However, the watermark is inserted in the detail area due to be less affected areas by digital image processing. The results showed that the proposed method increased the robustness of the tested watermarking techniques. Based on the results obtained, we developed a new digital watermark technique using discrete wavelet transform, image decomposition and discrete cosine transform. / Doutor

Submitted by Ivan Oliveira Lopes (io.lopes@ifsp.edu.br) on 2018-09-22T02:34:15Z No. of bitstreams: 1 MARDI_Marca dagua Robusta via Decomposicao de Imagens.pdf: 69551246 bytes, checksum: 895274cb196d7f5075a7bf92bba60e9f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Cristina Alexandra de Godoy null (cristina@adm.feis.unesp.br) on 2018-09-25T19:59:12Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 lopes_io_dr_ilha.pdf: 69617454 bytes, checksum: 7a93538756770bc0935aa4b85b95f4b7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-25T19:59:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 lopes_io_dr_ilha.pdf: 69617454 bytes, checksum: 7a93538756770bc0935aa4b85b95f4b7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-07-27 / Com a crescente evolução dos equipamentos eletrônicos, muitos dados digitais têm sido produzidos, copiados e distribuídos com facilidade, gerando uma grande preocupação com a sua segurança. Dentre as várias técnicas usadas para proteger os dados digitais, tem-se as técnicas de inserção e extração de marca d'água em imagens digitais. Uma marca d'água pode ser qualquer informação como, por exemplo, um código, um logotipo, ou uma sequência aleatória de letras e números, que vise garantir a autenticidade e a proteção dos direitos autoriais dos dados. Neste trabalho, estudou-se sobre as técnicas existentes de inserção e extração de marca d'água digital, abordando desde seu conceito até o desenvolvimento de algoritmos de inserção e extração de marca d'água em imagens digitais. Desenvolveu-se um método para aumentar a robustez de técnicas de marca d' água digital pela decomposição da imagem em duas partes: estrutural (áreas homogêneas) e de detalhes (áreas com ruídos, texturas e bordas). Contudo, a marca d'água é inserida na parte de detalhes por se tratar de áreas menos afetadas por operações de processamento digital de imagens. Os resultados mostraram que o método proposto aumentou a robustez das técnicas da marca d'água testadas. Baseado nos resultados obtidos, desenvolveu-se uma nova técnica de marca d'água digital, utilizando a transformada discreta de wavelets, a decomposição de imagens e a transformada discreta do cosseno. / With the increasing evolution of technological equipment, many digital data have been easily produced, copied and distributed by generating a great concern for their security. Among the various techniques used to protect the digital data, there are techniques for inserting and extracting a watermark into digital images. A watermark can be any information, such as a code, a logo, or a random sequence of letters and numbers, aiming to ensure the authenticity and copyright protection. In this work are studied, existing insertion and extraction techniques in digital watermarking, by covering from its concept to the development of watermark insertion and extraction algorithms, in digital images. A method was developed to increase the robustness of digital watermarking techniques by decomposing the image into two parts: structural (homogeneous areas) and details (areas with noises, textures and edges). However, the watermark is inserted in the detail area due to be less affected areas by digital image processing. The results showed that the proposed method increased the robustness of the tested watermarking techniques. Based on the results obtained, we developed a new digital watermark technique using discrete wavelet transform, image decomposition and discrete cosine transform.

Goals of this work are to summarize the process and existing methods of 3D models watermarking, to choose relevant methods for embedding/extraction of a watermark to/from 3D models. The final solution is based on Spectral Mesh Compression technique. This method is robust, imperceptible and informed. The embedded watermark is detectable and robust against geometrical transformations, added random noise, mesh smoothing and simplification, compression and cropping.  The realized tool allows a user to embedding watermark into the mesh, modify the mesh and extraction of a watermark from mesh. Testing was conducted on a set of 5 models differing in size, shape and density of points. The resulting tool inserts a watermark composed of four characters that can detect both undamaged models and the models affected. Among the attacks against which the watermark is robust, include transformations, rotation, scale, adaptive random noise, and combination of this.

No description available.

The ease of digital media modification and dissemination necessitates content protection beyond encryption. Information hidden as digital watermarks in multimedia enables protection mechanism in decrypted contents. The aims of this research are three-fold: (i) to investigate the strength and limitations of current watermarking schemes, (ii) to design and develop new schemes to overcome the limitations, and (iii) to evaluate the new schemes using application scenarios of copyright protection, tamper detection and authentication. We focus on geometrically robust watermarking and semi-fragile watermarking for digital images. Additionally, hybrid schemes that combine the strength of both robust and semi-fragile watermarks are studied. Robust watermarks are well suited for copyright protection because they stay intact with the image under various manipulations. We investigated two major approaches of robust watermarking. In the synchronization approach, we employed motion estimation for watermark resynchronization. We also developed a novel watermark resynchronization method that has low computational cost using scale normalization and flowline curvature. In another approach, we firstly analyzed and improved a blind watermark detection method. The new method reduces significantly the computational cost of its watermark embedding. Secondly, we created a geometric invariant domain using a combination of transforms, and adapted the blind watermark detection method that we improved. It totally eliminates the need of resynchronization in watermark detection, which is a very desirable achievement that can hardly be found in existing schemes. On the other hand, semi-fragile watermarks are good at content authentication because they can differentiate minor image enhancements from major manipulations. New capabilities of semi-fragile watermarks are identified. Then, we developed a semi-fragile watermarking method in wavelet domain that offers content authentication and tamper localization. Unlike others, our scheme overcomes a major challenge called cropping attack and provides approximate content recovery without resorting to an original image. Hybrid schemes combine robust and semi-fragile watermarks to offer deductive information in digital media forensics. We firstly carried out a pilot study by combining robust and fragile watermarks. Then, we performed a comparative analysis on two implementation methods of a hybrid watermarking scheme. The first method has the robust watermark and the fragile watermark overlapped while the second method uses non-overlapping robust and fragile watermarks. Based on the results of the comparative analysis, we merge our geometric invariant domain with our semi-fragile watermark to produce a hybrid scheme. This hybrid scheme fulfilled the copyright protection, tamper detection, and content authentication objectives when evaluated in an investigation scenario.

Thesis (MScEng)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Electronic watermarking is a method whereby information can be imperceptibly embedded into electronic media, while ideally being robust against common signal manipulations and intentional attacks to remove the embedded watermark. This study evaluates the characteristics of uncompressed video watermarking techniques in terms of visual characteristics, computational complexity and robustness against attacks and signal manipulations. The foundations of video watermarking are reviewed, followed by a survey of existing video watermarking techniques. Representative techniques from different watermarking categories are identified, implemented and evaluated. Existing image quality metrics are reviewed and extended to improve their performance when comparing these video watermarking techniques. A new metric for the evaluation of inter frame flicker in video sequences is then developed. A technique for possibly improving the robustness of the implemented discrete Fourier transform technique against rotation is then proposed. It is also shown that it is possible to reduce the computational complexity of watermarking techniques without affecting the quality of the original content, through a modified watermark embedding method. Possible future studies are then recommended with regards to further improving watermarking techniques against rotation. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: ’n Elektroniese watermerk is ’n metode waardeur inligting onmerkbaar in elektroniese media vasgelê kan word, met die doel dat dit bestand is teen algemene manipulasies en doelbewuste pogings om die watermerk te verwyder. In hierdie navorsing word die eienskappe van onsaamgeperste video watermerktegnieke ondersoek in terme van visuele eienskappe, berekeningskompleksiteit en weerstandigheid teen aanslae en seinmanipulasies. Die onderbou van video watermerktegnieke word bestudeer, gevolg deur ’n oorsig van reedsbestaande watermerktegnieke. Verteenwoordigende tegnieke vanuit verskillende watermerkkategorieë word geïdentifiseer, geïmplementeer en geëvalueer. Bestaande metodes vir die evaluering van beeldkwaliteite word bestudeer en uitgebrei om die werkverrigting van die tegnieke te verbeter, spesifiek vir die vergelyking van watermerktegnieke. ’n Nuwe stelsel vir die evaluering van tussenraampie flikkering in video’s word ook ontwikkel. ’n Tegniek vir die moontlike verbetering van die geïmplementeerde diskrete Fourier transform tegniek word voorgestel om die tegniek se bestandheid teen rotasie te verbeter. Daar word ook aangetoon dat dit moontlik is om die berekeningskompleksiteit van watermerktegnieke te verminder, sonder om die kwaliteit van die oorspronklike inhoud te beïnvloed, deur die gebruik van ’n verbeterde watermerkvasleggingsmetode. Laastens word aanbevelings vir verdere navorsing aangaande die verbetering van watermerktegnieke teen rotasie gemaak.