International Conference on Computer and Communication Engineering (ICCCE 2012), 3-5 July 2012, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Digital Audio Watermarking; Techniques and
Applications
R. F. Olanrewaju1, Othman Khalifa
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering,
International Islamic University Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur Malaysia,
1
frashidah@yahoo.com
Abstract— Counterfeiting and piracy of intellectual properties are
often pointed to as an indispensable problems across the globe,
though more intense in some region than others. Currently over
millions of digital audio files like digital songs are copied illegally
during file-sharing over the networks, costing loss of revenue to the
music and broadcasting industries. Right owners such artists,
composers, and producers have been searching for ways to protect
their creations, discoveries and inventions. These challenges
prompted significant research in Digital Watermarking (DW) to
develop efficient methods to protect copyright and authentication
messages in digital audio in order to prevent forgery and
impersonation. This paper brings to view techniques and applications
of digital audio watermarking signals. Requirements and Methods of
audio watermark were indentified and classified accordingly. A new
intelligent audio watermarking technique in a combine domain is
proposed to complement the current methods. It is expected that this
paper will serve as a launch pad for researchers interested in audio
watermarking.
Keywords- digital watermarking; audio signals; copyright
protection; watermark attacks
I. INTRODUCTION
Happenings in the music industry are drastically new
phenomenon and a natural development. The new
phenomenon is the fact that the Internet is changing the
storage, retrieval and distribution model for songs. Access to
broadband transmission as well as digitization of audio signals
is the main success of this change. Digital representations of
copyrighted audio files such as radio programs, music
telephone calls, phone banking, emergency calls, air traffic
communication and recordings of cultural heritage
preservations offer several distinct opportunity and advantages
over the analog counterpart. Thus editing is easy because one
can access the exact discrete locations that should be changed
and copying is simple with no loss of fidelity. Digital audios
are easily transmitted over networked information systems
faster and inexpensively [1]. This development results from
unrestricted access offered by the digital technology
particularly large-scale unauthorized copying, downloading,
and distribution of multimedia work. Consequently, the
importance of authentication, content verification, authorized
978-1-4673-0479-5/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE
830
duplication, and content protection in digital audio has become
more apparent and sensitive issues.
Recently, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
is on a world tour trying to convince politicians to introduce
legislation that criminalizes the recording of movies in
cinemas. The MPAA already succeeded in Canada, Japan and
Italy, and their next stop is the UK [2]. Another breakthrough
coalition of the MPAA, Recording Industry Association of
America (RIAA) and other copyright holders have signed an
agreement with AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner
Cable and Verizon to curb piracy. Under the agreement, the
ISPs agree to send “copyright alerts” to subscribers whose
Internet connections are used for copyright infringement.
Repeated offenders will not be disconnected from the Internet,
but could be slowed down instead [3].
These challenges prompted significant research to develop
efficient methods to protect copyright and authentication
messages in digital audios in order to prevent forgery and
impersonation [4]
Digital Audio Watermarking (DAW) is inaudibly altering of
audio signal to embed message or marks about the host itself
which can be detected or extracted afterwards to make an
assertion about the original audio signal. In digital audio
watermarking, the original audio being communicated is the
cover or host signal and watermark provides additional
information about the cover. Digital audio files such as songs
are the most susceptible to copyright infringements because of
conditions attached to it [5]. For example, most digital songs
are offered online in advance to be downloaded as
promotional copies. These promotional copies can be used by
pirates.
Digital watermarking can be effectively used to limit the scope
of counterfeiting and piracy of audio files. This is due to
crucial features such as imperceptibility, inseparability of the
content from the watermark, and intrinsic ability to undergo
same transformation experienced by the host signal, which
digital watermark possesses. This preference has been
established to provide improved security [6].
Research reports in Digital Audio Watermarking is relatively
low in percentage compare to image and video watermarking
due to sensitivity of Human Auditory System (HAS). DAW
scheme rely on the imperfection of HAS, which is more
sensitive than other sensory motors. Hence, designing of a
balanced auditory scheme is a complex issue. Furthermore, the
amount of information that can be embedded into audio signal
is lesser compared to image or in video. This is because audio
is a one dimensional signal. At present, publications in audio
watermarking have steadily increased since year 2000[7, 8].
Thus digital audio watermarking domain has potential to be
used as a system for managing Intellectual Property rights, and
can be used not only to know the author of a particular audio
file, but also record the path a particular file takes if it is
distributed in an unauthorized manner [5].
II. REQUIREMENTS AND TECHNIQUES OF DIGITAL AUDIO
WATERMARKING DESIGN
A. Digital Audio Watermarking Requirements
To design an optimal audio watermarking system, some
design features need to be taken into consideration. This
Figure 1: Classification of digital audio watermarking attacks
B. Digital Audio Watermarking System Modules
A typical audio digital watermarking system consists of
two generic modules, the watermark embedding module and
watermark recovery module also known as extractor. The
embedding module inserts the watermark information in the
audio signal while the recovery module extracts /detects the
watermarked information as illustrated in Figure 2. In some
systems, the detection can be with the availability of the
831
includes processing properties such as, payload, security,
complexity of the watermarking algorithm, perceptual
transparency, robustness and application specific requirements
[7, 9]. Robustness of the algorithm to attacks and quality of
the watermarked audio tracks are related properties that are
indispensable. All applications presupposing protection and
use in verification of the watermarking systems require this
type of marking in order to survive any kind of alterations or
intentional removal introduced by standard or malicious
processing and attacks [10]. Figure 1 shows some common
attacks on audio watermarking system.
original signal known as non blind/informed detection or
without the original audio signal called a blind detection.
C. Audio Watermarking Techniques and Algorithms
The two main streams of watermark embedding are to
embed either in time or transform domain as shown in Figure
3.
Though recently, reserchers have been using combined
domain to improve on the robutness of audio watermarking
algorithms..
 Figure 2: Digital watermarking scheme with embedding and extracting module
Figure 3: Digital Watermarking Domains
D. Time Domain Audio Watermarking
Time domain watermarking was the first watermarking
schemes that were investigated by researchers. Embedding in
the temporal domain means that the watermark is embedded
directly into the host audio by modifying the arrays or adding
a pseudorandom noise pattern to the audio data [11]. Temporal
domain techniques include Low bit coding such as Least
Significant Bit coding (LSB). This is easily achieved by the
camouflage of noises inherent to digital signal acquisition
process [10, 11, 12]. It requires altering the LSB of individual
sampled of the digitized audio stream. Though this technique
is easy to design and can embed large data, however it is
vulnerable to even a slight audio distortion, such as simple file
conversion. It also causes audio degradation because of
random changes especially in LSB.
E. Transform Domain Audio watermarking
Audio watermarking techniques that work in frequency
domain, take the advantage of audio masking characteristics of
Human Auditory System, (HAS) to embed an inaudible
watermark signal in digital audio signals. Transforming audio
signal from time domain to frequency domain enables
watermarking system to embed the watermark into
perceptually significant components. This provides the system
with a high level of robustness and inaudibleness [15].
Techniques such as Phase coding [16][17] uses phase shift
in phase spectrum of signal carrier to split the carrier signal
832
into series of short sequence length. The watermark is then
embedded as phase shifts in the phase spectrum into the first
block of the audio stream. This leads to inaudible encoding in
terms of Signal-to- Perceived Noise Ratio (SPNR) and the
watermark gets camouflaged in the audio signal[18].The
major drawback of phase coding is low payload, because,
watermark can be embedded into the first block only. This
also implies that the watermark is localized which can be
easily remove by attack like cropping. Furthermore, it is a non
blind and it applicability is limited [7].
To overcome the weakness in phase coding, phase modulation
[19, 20], a time-varying of all-pass filter is modulated
individually in the audio signal. Each coefficient is
independently and inaudibly altered. A disadvantage of phase
coding is the complexity of this method due to the number of
transformations which have to be computed for detection, that
is, performed in the Cepstrum domain [21]. It is also a non
blind algorithm.
Some algorithms [22, 23] in transform domain are based on
Echo hiding techniques. Echo hiding algorithms embed
watermarks into a signal by adding echos to produce a marked
signal.
The echo-hiding watermarking is modeled as;
(1)
Where y(n) is the watermarked signal segment, x(n) is a
segment of the audio signal, h(n) s the echo kernel, and the *
operator denotes convolution.
Here, three parameters are considered; the amplitude, delay
time and decay rate of the host signal. The echo is not easily
resolved as all the three parameters are set below the human
audible threshold limit [24]. Echo hiding is a blind method
that allows for a higher payload and provides superior
robustness when compared to the noise inducing methods.
Spread Spectrum (SS) coding method [25, 26], a technique
that randomly spreads the bits of the secret data message
across the frequency spectrum of the audio signal [27]. SS
require that the transmitter and receiver are synchronized. It
uses a separate code independent of the host signal to encode
and decode the watermark, Though SS detection does not
require the original recording and it is robust to attacks
compared to the phase coding and phase modulation, however
it also introduces noise.
Mathematically give as;
(2)
where M(n) is the sequence of data from of the original audio,
X(n) is the watermark sequence, λ is a gain factor controlling
the embedding strength, and M‘(n) is the sequence of
watermarked audio.
Patchwork [28, 29, 30], is a statistical technique that uses
redundant pattern encoding to embed a message in an audio
signal. It mainly involve two steps:
1. choose two patches pseudo-randomly and
2. add the small constant value to the sample values of
one patch X and subtract the same value from the
sample values of another patch Y [31].
Patchwork is modeled as;
(3)
(4)
where and are sample values of the patchwork sets and X
and Y respectively. Though 3DWFKZRUN DOJRULWKP GRHV
QRW UHTXLUH WKH RULJLQDO KRVW VLJQDO LQ WKH
SURFHVVRIZDWHUPDUNGHWHFWLRQEOLQGZDWHUPDUNLQJ
Psychoacoustic Masking and Bitstream method [39],
Frequency Domain Shaping and Time Domain Weighting
[40], et.c. Through combine techniques, there is a better
assurance that the watermark will not be audible under all
bitrates of compression technology. Additional, it has low
computational complexity, thus is ideal for transactional, or
per sale, watermarking. It also does not degrade the audio
quality. [41].
III. DIGITAL AUDIO WATERMARKING APPLICATIONS
Copy prevention and copyright protection applications have
been the brain behind audio watermarking. However, it’s not
limited to that. Applications such as broadcast monitoring,
content authentication and fingerprinting have benefited a lot
from audio watermarking. These applications are increasing
rapidly. Recently, digital audio watermarking has taken a new
dimension. Nowadays, watermarks are use to stop music
writers from leaking advance promotional copies onto the
internet [37].
In addition, watermark has been used to stop camcording
pirates which poses a serious threat to the profits of music
industries. In order to stop the cammers in their tracks, theater
owners have been equipped with night-vision goggles. In this
GHWHFWLRQ+RZHYHUWhe performance of the patchwork
algorithm depends on the distance between two sample means
and which affects the inaudibility. Furthermore, the patchwork
algorithm has originally been designed for images, therefore,
it is susceptible to potentially reversed engineering by players
for removal.
F. Compressed Domain Audio Watermarking
Compression capability of the MPEG standard [32] has
established a preferred coding technique for audiovisual
content [33]. This development, coupled with the fact that in
compress domain [34], watermark signal are embedded
directly into the MPEG audio bit stream rather than encoding
and decoding in uncompress domain [35, 36] is of advantage.
This implies that there is no need to change the original
bitstream syntax. This is due to the fact that MPEG audio
compression is a lossy algorithm and uses the special nature of
the HAS because the dynamic range of the auditory system
decreases with decreasing frequency. It removes the
perceptually irrelevant parts of the audio and makes the audio
signal distortion inaudible to human ear. Such systems are
suitable for “pay audio” scenario, where the provider stores
audio contents in compressed format [37]. During download
of music, the customer identifies himself/herself with his/her
unique customer ID, which therefore is known to the provider
during delivery.
G. Combined Domain Audio Watermarking
Combined domain audio watermarking is the utilizing of
multi-dimensional approach. This includes the use of
Psychoacoustic Models and Spread Spectrum [38],
833
case, watermarks are use locate camcording pirates seat. For
example, the night vision goggles helped to spot “Batman and
Bond” pirates. Besides, a teenager was caught for recording a
few seconds of the movie “Transformers” on her cell-phone
[42].
In some studios, watermarks are recorded in the soundtrack of
theatrical releases, and when a pirated recording appears it
will be possible to determine the place and date of its creation.
Such watermark will confirm the changes that have occurred.
Furthermore, authors of musical composition embed a
watermark by using specialized software and distribute the
product. If a dispute about the authorship arises, watermark
will serve as a means of litigation. Such watermark will allow
tracing the path of illegal distribution of audio files as well.
In recent times, watermarks are embedded as a function in
telephoning system which will further confirm the identity of
the called and the caller [2].
.
IV. FUTURE DIRECTION OF DIGITAL AUDIO WATERMARKING
In the nearest future, watermark will be equipped with
intelligence that can potentially tell the content of an audio
file, where it originated from, the distribution channel, date
distributed, to whom it was distributed (legal customer profile)
and possibly the type of media the track was last used on. For
example the watermark content can go as follows;
'this content is "Stairway to Heaven," distributed through
Starbucks, last transferred through the Hear Music kiosk in
downtown San Francisco on Dec. 8th, to a registered Hear
Music user who has this profile and uses a Microsoft Zune."
[41].
Such system can be easily implemented on connected devices,
like the iPhone, iPods etc.
V. WAY FORWARD
Intelligent Combined Domain Audio Watermarking
From the above reviews, several studies have been carried out
in audio watermarking, ranging from temporal to combined
domain. It is noticed that there is no single method that fulfill
all the audio watermarking requirements due to a trade-off
between robustness, inaudibility and payload. Fixing any
dimension such as robustness, there exist tradeoff
relationships between the other two dimensions. However,
there is a need to explore the use of intelligent agent such as
artificial neural network (ANN) to bring balance among the
requirements as well as train locations in which the watermark
can be safely embedded. In such that the watermark is neither
destroyed nor be removed by attacks as well as does not
degrade the quality of the audio signal. Owing to the inherent
Figure 4: Schematic diagram of proposed Intelligent Combined Domain Audio Watermarking i-CAW
VI. CONCLUSION
Digital Audio Watermarking technology is now coming a vital
weapon to deter impersonification and piracy in the audio
industries. We have presented an overview of various audio
watermarking schemes as well as the algorithmic
requirements. We discussed many of the current application of
digital audio watering and it future application. There has not
been sufficient investigation into Intelligent digital audio
watermarking. In order for watermarking to be successful, we
propose application of ANN in combined domain to balance
digital audio watermarking requirements
834
characteristics of Neural Network such as learning and
adaptive capabilities, pattern mapping and classification and
ability to generalize, not only to reproduce previously seen
data, but also provide correct predictions in similar situations
gives the trained networks ability to recover the watermark
from the watermarked data [4]. The incorporation of such
consideration is referred to as “Intelligent Combined Domain
Audio Watermarking” (i-CAW)
. In this newly propose technique, embedding watermark in
such trained location in a combined domain will bring balance
among inaudibility, payload and robustness at a low
computational complexity.
This suggests that investigating and researching in such niche
area will lead to design of an attack proof watermarking
scheme as well as solve the problem of audio degradation.
Schematic diagram of the proposed domain is as shown in
Figure 4.
REFERENCES
[1] S. Sherekar, V. Thakare, and S. Jain, Role of Digital Watermark In E-
Governance and E-Commerce. IJCSNS, 8(1), pp. 257. 2008.
[2] MPAA, RIAA Team Up With ISPs to ‘Alert’ Pirates,
<http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-riaa-team-up-with-isps-to-curb-piracy-
110707/
[3] http://speetech.com/press/analytics/the-use-of-audio-watermarking-in-
the-recording-industrymarking
[4] R. F. Olanrewaju, Development of An Intelligent Digital Watermarking
Algorithm Via Safe Region”, Unpublished PhD thesis, International
Islamic University Malaysia, 2011.
[5] M. O Agbaje , A.T Akinwale and A.N Njah, Audio Watermarking: A
Critical Review , International Journal of Scientific & Engineering
Research, 2(11), 2011.
[6] R. F. Olanrewaju, A. A. Aburas, and O.O. Khalifa and A. Abdalla
State-of-The-Art Application of Artificial Neural Network In Digital
Watermarking And The Way Forward. Paper Presented At The
International Conference on Computing & Informatics (ICOCI 09),
Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. Malaysia, 2009.
[7] M. K., M. Arnold, M. Schmucker and S. D. Wolthusen, Techniques
and applications of digital watermarking and content protection, Artech
House Publishers, 2003.
[8] J. S. Pan, H. C. Huang, L. C. Jain, Intelligent Watermarking
Techniques, World Scientific Pub Co Inc. 2004.
[9] N. Cvejic, and T. Seppanen. Digital audio watermarking techniques and
technologies: applications and benchmarks, IGI Global. 2007.
[10] I. Cox,, M. Miller, et al. Digital watermarking and steganography,
Morgan Kaufmann, 2008.
[11] J. Dittmann, M. Steinebach, T. Kunkelmann, and L. Stoffels, H2O4M-
Watermarking For Media: Classification, Quality Evaluation, Design
Improvements. Proceedings of ACM Workshops on Multimedia, pp.
107-110, 2000.
[12] Z. Gao, and Y. Zheng, Quality constrained compression using DWT-
based image quality metric. Circuits and Systems for Video Technology,
IEEE Transactions on, 18(7), pp. 910-922., 2008.
[13] R. Van Schyndel, A Tirkel, and C. Osborne, A Digital Watermark.
IEEE International Conference Image Processing, pp. 86-90, 1994.
[14] S. Meng, W. Cao, Y. Yan and S. Li , Bit Replacement Audio
Watermarking Using Stereo Signals Advanced in Information Sciences
and Service Sciences, 2(3), September 2010.
[15] I. Cox, J. Kilian, F. Leighton, and T. Shamoon, Secure Spread Spectrum
Watermarking for Multimedia. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing,
6(12), pp. 1673-1687, 2002.
[16] X. M. Chen, G. Doërr, M. Arnold, P.G Baunm. (2011). Efficient
coherent phase quantization for audio watermarking, IEEE International
Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP),
2011.
[17] X. Dong, M. F. Bocko, Z. Ignjatovic, Data hiding via phase
manipulation of audio signals, IEEE Inter. Conf. on .Acoustics, Speech,
and Signal Processing, Proceedings. (ICASSP '04). vol.5, no., pp. V-
377-80 , 17-21 May 2004.
[18] R. Ansari, H. Malik, and A. Khokhar, Data-Hiding In Audio Using
Frequency-Selective Phase Alteration, IEEE Int. Conf. on ,Acoustics,
Speech, and Signal Processing, pp. 389-392 vol.5, 17-21 May 2004
[19] A. Takahashi,, R. Nishimura, et al. Multiple watermarks for stereo audio
signals using phase-modulation techniques, IEEE Transactions on
Signal Processing, 53(2): 806-815, 2005.
[20] M. Arnold, M. Arnold, P. Baum and W. Voeßing A Phase Modulation
Audio Watermarking technique Information Hiding. S. Katzenbeisser
and A.-R. Sadeghi, Springer Berlin / Heidelberg. 5806: 102-116, 2009.
S.-K. Lee and Y.- S. Ho, Digital Audio Watermarking in the ceptrum
domain, IEEE Transactions on Consumer and Electronic, pp, 744- 750,
vol 6, no 3, 2000.
[21] Y. Xiang, D. Peng, I. Natgunanathan, and W. Zhou, Effective
Pseudonoise Sequence and Decoding Function for Imperceptibility and
Robustness Enhancement in Time-Spread Echo-Based Audio
Watermarking, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 13(1), February 2011.
[22] W. Bender, D. Gruhl, N. Morimoto, and A. Lu,”Techniques for data
hiding,” IBM Systems Journal, vol. 35, pp. 313-336, 1996.
[23] H.O. Oh, J. W. Seok, J. W. Hong, and D. H Youn,”New echo
embedding technique for robust and imperceptible audio watermarking,”
IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal
Processing, vol. 3, pp. 1341-1344, 2001.
[24] D. Kirovski, and H. S. Malvar, Spread-spectrum watermarking of audio
signals, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 51(4): 1020-1033,
2003
[25] I. J. Cox,, J. Kilian, T. Leighton, and T. Shamoon, Secure spread
spectrum watermarking for images, audio and video, IEEE Proc. Int.
Conf. on Image Processing, 1996.
835
[26] N. Meghanathan, and L. Nayak, A review of the audio and video
steganalysis algorithms, ACM, 2010.
[27] P. Bassia, I. Pitas, and N. Nikolaidis, “Robust audio watermarking in the
time domain,” IEEE Trans. Multimedia, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 232–241, Jun.
2001.
[28] W. Bender, D. Gruhl, N. Morimoto, & A. Lu, Techniques For Data
Hiding. IBM Systems Journal, 35(3/4), PP. 313-336, 1996.
[29] N. K. Kalantari, M. A. Akhaee, S. M. Ahadi, and H. Amindavar, IEEE
Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, 17(6), 2009.
[30] I. K.Yeo and H. J. Kim, Modified patchwork algorithm:A novel audio
watermarking scheme, IEEE Trans. Speech Audio Process., 11(4), pp.
381–386, Jul. 2003.
[31] ISO/IEC 13818-2, Information technology-Generic coding of moving
pictures and associated audio: Video., 2000.
[32] D. Simitopoulos, Fast Watermarking of MPEG-1/2 Streams Using
Compressed-Domain Perceptual Embedding and a Generalized
Correlator Detector EURASIP Journal on Applied Signal Processing,
2004(8), pp 1088-1106, 2004.
[33] M. A. T. Alsalami and M. M. Al-Akaidi, Digital Audio Watermarking:
Survey,Proc. 17th European Simulation multiconference, De Montfort
UK, pp. 1-14, 2003.
[34] C. Neubauer, and J. Herre, Audio watermarking of MPEG-2 AAC bit
streams, Preprints-Audio Engineering Society, 2000.
[35] P. Artameeyanant, Wavelet audio watermark robust against MPEG
compression, Control Automation and Systems (ICCAS), Inter. Conf. on
, vol., no., pp.1375-1378, 27-30 Oct. 2010.
[36] E. V. Buskirk, Are Digital Music Watermarks a Blessing or a Curse?,
2007.
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/commentary/listeningpost/2
007/08/listeningpost_0820
[37] C. Neubauer, and J. Herre, Digital Watermarking and its Influence on
Audio Quality. 105th AES Convention, San Fransisco, California.
Preprint 4823, 1998
[38] J. Lacy, R. Quackenbush, A. Reibman , D. Shur and J. Snyder, On
Combining Watermarking with Perceptual Coding. ICASSP Seattle,
Washington. MMSP1.9, 1998.
[39] L. Boney, A. H. Tewfik, K. N Hamdy 1996 Digital Watermarks for
Audio Signals. EUSIPCO-96, VIII European Signal Proc. Conf., Trieste,
Italy. (Patent pending)
[40] R. Eklund, Audio Watermarking Techniques,
http://www.musemagic.com/papers/watermark.html.
[41] Audio Watermarks Locate Camcording Pirates
http://torrentfreak.com/audio-watermarks-locate-camcording-pirates-
090304/
[42] MPAA lawmaker, MPAA Pushes Lawmakers to Criminalize Movie
Camming, http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-to-criminalize-movie-camming-
070905/