Digital watermarking systems and methods

Abstract

Systems and methods for protecting digital content using digital watermarks and for distributing that protected digital content are described. The digital watermark contains watermark information, fingerprint information, and any other information desired by the provider of the digital content. To insert the digital watermark in the digital content, a section of the digital content is selected, whether it is a random section or a desired section (such as the first or last section), and then that section is broken into a given number of individual slides. The digital watermark is created as an additional slide or frame and then placed between the slides of that section. These individual slides, which now contain the watermark, are re-combined and then re-attached to the remainder of the digital content when desired, such as on the fly or at the time of the user's purchase of the digital content. The user (or other viewer) receives only a single packet of information for the digital content, rather than numerous packets of information, preventing compression and decompression processes from avoiding the watermark since any such compression would not only diminish the slide with the watermark on it, but also the content and render the digital content unusable. Other embodiments are described.