Leaving a Mark on Digital Media: A Partial Survey of the Perfect Digital Watermark Problem

Informally, the goal of a digital watermark is to "mark" a piece of digital media, such as images or videos, in a way that makes it possible to identify the respectful owner of the media and make it difficult for an opponent to remove the mark without destroying the object. A "perfect" digital watermark is a watermark that has become impossible to remove without destroying the media, but this type of digital watermarking does not exist and remains an unsolved problem. In this project, I partially survey the current state of the perfect digital watermark problem and the theories being applied to the problem. Further, this work closely examines current state-of-the-art methods for watermarking digital media and what benefits and flaws these methods have as watermarking schemes. I also investigate and speculate on the implications of the existence of a perfect digital watermark; focusing on the copyright issues, the cost, and general availability to a broader consumer.