A Buyer-Friendly and Mediated Watermarking Protocol for Web Context

Watermarking protocols are used in conjunction with digital watermarking techniques to protect digital copyright on the Internet. They define the schemes of the web transactions by which buyers can purchase protected digital content distributed by content providers in a secure manner. Over the last few years, significant examples of watermarking protocols have been proposed in literature. However, a detailed examination of such protocols has revealed a number of problems that have to be addressed in order to make them suited for current web context. Therefore, based on the most relevant problems derived from literature, this article identifies the main challenges posed by the development of watermarking protocols for web context and presents a watermarking protocol that follows a new secure, buyer-centric and mediated design approach able to meet such challenges.