A scalable and oblivious digital watermarking for images

Scalable compression algorithms, such as JPEG, can compress images to different quality or resolution levels so that the target systems with different display capabilities, can display the image. Digital watermarking is widely used for protection of copyright and identification of ownership on digital images. It is desirable to have scalable watermarking systems, where the watermark is detectable when the watermarked image is at low quality or low resolution levels. This paper presents an oblivious block-based spread-spectrum-like watermarking system which is robust against scalable JPEG compression, cropping and shifting. The system is secure against the common watermarking attacks. Experimental results support these claims.