Compressed video stream watermarking for peer-to-peer based content distribution network

Peer-to-peer content distribution provides high network throughput with relatively low server cost and scales better than traditional content distribution networks with respect to the number of clients. It is ideal for applications requiring large data transfer such as video-on-demand or live video streaming. Traditional forensic watermarking systems are based on the assumption that each user receives a unique copy of video content to allow for tracking of pirated content back to the original recipient. However, P2P-based distribution systems are typically designed to supply identical copies to each user. This paper proposes a new watermarking framework that is suitable for P2P-based content delivery systems. Watermarking algorithms that are appropriate for this system are also discussed.