KR20090079045A - A method and apparatus for realtime-providing multimedia contents comprising watermark - Google Patents

Abstract

A method and an apparatus for providing multimedia contents including a watermark in real time are provided to prevent illegal copy of the watermarked multimedia contents by tracing illegal distribution. A predetermined watermark is inserted into one or more multimedia contents. One or more watermarked multimedia contents are produced and stored(112). If a request for the predetermined multimedia contents is received from a user terminal, identification information of a user and related information of identification information of the predetermined multimedia contents are generated and stored(114,134). The watermarked multimedia contents corresponding to the requested multimedia contents are provided to the user terminal(116).

Description

Method and apparatus for providing real-time multimedia content including watermarks {A METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR REALTIME-PROVIDING MULTIMEDIA CONTENTS COMPRISING WATERMARK}

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for providing a watermark for preventing illegal distribution of multimedia content. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for providing multimedia content in real time including a watermark for preventing illegal distribution of multimedia content.

In general, multimedia content is delivered to a user who consumes it in real time through a network, and a service provider providing multimedia content may provide multimedia content including a watermark. The purpose of embedding the watermark in the multimedia content may be to verify the integrity of the content or may be for copyright protection.

In this regard, the multimedia content provided by the service provider may be easily propagated by P2P programs or the like between individual users through a communication network such as the Internet as digital information. While these actions can be easily performed, it is not easy to track the route through which such illegal duplication and propagation takes place. Therefore, forensic marking, which prevents illegal distribution by inserting a watermark in the multimedia content provided from the service provider, may be a solution.

Forensic marking refers to a technology of inserting a watermark into the content to track the illegal distribution of the content. Forensic watermarks are useful for finding sources of pirated content, such as vehicle identification numbers that can be used to track stolen cars. For example, if a copyright-protected medium is found to be illegally distributed through a peer-to-peer program or the like, the content owner can extract a watermark from the suspected content and identify the person who illegally distributed the content. have.

The watermark inserted in the forensic marking requires toughness. Here, the robustness of the watermark means that the watermark is maintained without being deformed due to the attack, such as filtering, deformation, or compression, of the multimedia content including the watermark. In addition, the watermark for forensic marking includes a clue to track which user the multimedia content is provided to the user from the service provider from the watermark extracted from the illegally distributed multimedia content in relation to the information of the user who receives the multimedia content. Can be provided.

On the other hand, in general, multimedia content refers to content in audio or video format, not text or image (still picture), and such multimedia content includes a considerable amount of data compared to images. In addition, in the case of transmitting or receiving multimedia content in the form of original data, the capacity of the data is so large that it is not suitable as an object of transmission or reception. Thus, most of the multimedia content is generally used in the form of compressed data rather than the original data.

In addition, when the watermark is inserted only in a part of the content, the resources and time required for the watermark embedding process can be reduced. However, if a significant portion of the portion other than the watermarked portion does not significantly affect the value as the content, it may be possible to distribute the content by removing only this portion, and it may be easier to extract or remove the watermarked portion. It may be. Thus, watermark embedding as forensic marking must be made in large part of the content as a whole.

In the case of forensic marking of such multimedia contents, in order to ensure high robustness of the watermark, a watermark is inserted into raw data of uncompressed multimedia contents. According to the related art, a process of acquiring a multimedia content that can be provided in real time by inserting a watermark in the state of the uncompressed original data of the compressed multimedia content and compressing the original data into which the watermark is inserted is required. . Therefore, in the case of forensic marking that inserts a watermark related to user information, after obtaining the user's information from the user, the compressed multimedia content is decompressed to insert a watermark in the state of the original data and recompress it. Since it takes time, there is a problem that it is impossible to provide multimedia content in real time immediately upon request of the user.

On the other hand, in order to compensate for this problem, a bitstream watermarking method of inserting a watermark directly into compressed multimedia content has recently been proposed, but this method has a stronger watermark than that of directly inserting a watermark into original data. There is a problem that is inappropriate to use for forensic marking because it falls a lot.

The present invention satisfies the requirements for forensic marking, in which the watermark's robustness and the watermark embedded in the multimedia content must be related to the information of the user who is provided with the multimedia content, while the multimedia content including the watermark is provided in real time. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus that can be employed.

In order to achieve the above object, a method for providing multimedia content including a watermark to a user terminal in real time from a service provider terminal of the present invention, one or more watermarking by inserting a predetermined watermark in each of the one or more multimedia content Generating and storing the multimedia contents, when receiving a request for a predetermined multimedia content among the one or more multimedia contents from a user terminal, generating and storing related information of the identification information of the user and the identification information of the predetermined multimedia content. And providing the user terminal with watermarked multimedia content corresponding to the requested predetermined multimedia content.

Preferably, the step of generating and storing the one or more watermarked multimedia contents performs an operation of generating and storing association information between the identification information of the multimedia content and the identification information of the predetermined watermark.

Preferably, the step of generating and storing the association information between the identification information of the user and the identification information of the predetermined multimedia content includes at least one of the identification information of the multimedia content and the identification information of the predetermined watermark and the identification information of the user. Creates and stores related information.

Preferably, the step of providing the watermarked multimedia content to the user terminal performs the operation of providing the watermarked multimedia content to the user terminal as a streaming service.

In addition, a device for providing multimedia content including a watermark of the present invention to a user terminal in real time, watermarking to generate and store one or more watermarked multimedia content by inserting a predetermined watermark into each of the one or more multimedia contents. A multimedia content database, a receiving unit for receiving a request for a predetermined multimedia content of one or more multimedia contents from a user terminal, and the association information of the identification information of the user and the identification information of the predetermined multimedia content according to the request received by the receiving unit. And a transmitting unit for providing the user terminal with a watermarked multimedia content corresponding to the requested predetermined multimedia content.

Preferably, the watermarked multimedia content database includes a matching table for storing association information of the identification information of the multimedia content and the identification information of the predetermined watermark.

Preferably, the association information table database includes a matching table that stores one or more of identification information of multimedia content and identification information of a predetermined watermark, and association information of identification information of a user.

Preferably, the transmitter provides the watermarked multimedia content to the user as a streaming service.

According to the present invention, in the method and apparatus for providing various multimedia contents, the multimedia contents requested by the user can be provided in real time, and the provided multimedia contents are illegal because the multimedia contents are provided with a watermark with a guaranteed forensic marking. Since the distribution of phosphorus can be tracked, the act of illegally copying such watermarked multimedia contents can be prevented.

EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION Hereinafter, this invention is demonstrated in detail with reference to attached drawing.

1 is a block diagram illustrating an overall process 100 for providing multimedia content including a watermark according to a user's request, which is maintained at the service provider terminal 110, the user terminal 120, and the service provider side. The operation between the table database 130 is demonstrated.

The service provider terminal 110 may provide various multimedia contents according to a request from the user terminal 120, and provide the multimedia contents requested by the user in real time in response to a request from the user terminal 120. In addition, the service provider terminal 110 is provided with a variety of multimedia content in advance of the user's request.

In order to prevent illegal copying and distribution of multimedia content distributed by the service provider terminal 110, that is, forensic marking, a watermark may be inserted into the multimedia content. The watermark inserted at this time is a strong watermark and is inserted in the raw data state of the multimedia content. In addition, the embedding of watermarks may be done on a substantial portion of the content as a whole.

After a strong watermark is inserted in the original data, the watermarked data is compressed and stored as multimedia content that can be provided in real time. As a result, the inserted watermark does not disappear even when the digital data accompanying the illegal copying is changed, distorted, or damaged, so that the watermark can be extracted from the data in the illegal distribution path, and thus can have suitable characteristics for forensic marking. Will be. Specific techniques related to embedding and extracting watermarks are well known to those skilled in the art, and thus detailed descriptions thereof will be omitted to clearly express the features of the present invention.

In inserting a watermark into each of the various multimedia contents included in the service provider terminal 110, related information about which watermark information is inserted into which multimedia content may be generated and stored. The stored association information may be stored as table 132 in table database 130.

While the table 132 is stored in the database 130, the service provider terminal 110 may store the watermarked multimedia content (watermarked multimedia content) as multimedia content that can be provided to the user terminal 120. (112).

The user selects one or a plurality of multimedia contents included in the service provider terminal 110, transmits a request for it, and the service provider terminal 110 receives a request from the user terminal 120. Can be (114).

A table in which association information between the multimedia content and the watermark information is stored in the table database 130 in parallel with the service provider terminal 110 receiving the user's request for providing the watermarked multimedia content to the user terminal 120. 132 may be used to generate relevant information about which multimedia content is provided to which user and store it as a table 134. That is, the operation of creating and storing the table 134 may be performed before, after, or concurrently with the operation of providing the watermarked multimedia content to the user. As a result, the service provider terminal 110 may know which watermarked multimedia content is provided to which user based on the association information stored in the table 134.

While the table 134 is stored, the service provider terminal 110 transmits the watermarked multimedia content to the user terminal 120 (116), and the user terminal 120 corresponds to the watermarked multimedia corresponding to the requested multimedia content. The content can be received, played, and enjoyed (124).

On the other hand, in the conventional multimedia content real-time providing service technology, the time required for the user to receive the multimedia content from the user's request, the request of the service provider from the request transmission 122 of the user in the present invention (114) ), Equal to the time taken to transmit 116 and receive 124 of the watermarked multimedia content from the service provider. In addition, in the present invention, since the multimedia content that is watermarked is generated and stored before the request from the user terminal 120, the operation of inserting the watermark into the multimedia content to be provided is performed from the user terminal 120. It is not counted after the request. Also, since generating the related information including the user information as the table 134 is performed in parallel with the transmission of the watermarked multimedia content 116 to the user, the real time service is provided to the user terminal 120. It doesn't matter how long it takes. Alternatively, even if the table 134 is generated prior to providing the watermarked multimedia content, the table 134 additionally performs only an operation of associating only the user information with the table 132. The time it takes is extremely small. Therefore, the quality of the real-time service perceived by the user, that is, the time required to receive the multimedia content from the user's request is substantially the same as in the prior art. Therefore, the user terminal 120 may be provided with watermarked multimedia content corresponding to the requested multimedia content in real time.

2 is a block diagram of a service provider for explaining a method 200 for generating and providing multimedia content including a watermark.

First, the service provider inserts watermark information into each original data state of various multimedia contents and compresses it, thereby generating and storing the multimedia contents (watermarked multimedia contents) in which the watermark is inserted in advance (S210). ). Next, when receiving a multimedia content request from the user (S220), the service provider searches for and prepares watermarked multimedia content corresponding to the multimedia content requested by the user, and prepares the watermarked multimedia content and the user's information. A matching table is generated and stored (S230). Finally, the service provider transmits the watermarked multimedia content corresponding to the multimedia content requested by the user to the user in real time (S240). The above-described matching table generation and storage step S230 and the real time transmission step S240 may be performed in parallel. Since the detailed description of the real-time transmission is well known to those skilled in the art, the detailed description thereof will be omitted for clarity.

3 is a block diagram illustrating a system 300 for providing multimedia content including a watermark, where the system 300 can include a distribution server 310, a user terminal 320, and a network 330. have. Here, the user terminal 320 refers to a terminal controlled by a general user who consumes multimedia content, and the communication network 320 may include a general wired / wireless communication network such as the Internet. Hereinafter, the distribution server 310 will be described in detail.

The distribution server 310 may include a multimedia content database 311, a watermark information generator 312, a watermark inserter 313, a watermarked multimedia content database 314, a table database 315, and a transmitter 316. The receiver 317 and the controller 318 may be included. The components 311-315 of the distribution server 310 may be integrally disposed in the distribution server 310, or may be formed by connecting to the distribution server, respectively, formed outside the distribution server 310.

The multimedia content database 311 may store one or more various multimedia contents that may be provided to a user from the distribution server 310. Each of the multimedia contents stored in the multimedia content database 311 may be given unique identification information. . The unique identification information may include one or more of attributes such as file name, file location (path), size, etc. of the corresponding multimedia content.

The watermark information generator 312 generates and stores information of one or more watermarks to be inserted into the multimedia content. The information included as the watermark may include the name of the service provider, information as forensic marking, or the like, or may be any information. The generated watermark information may be distinguished by each unique identification information. The unique identification information may include one or more of attributes such as creation date and serial number of the watermark.

The watermark inserting unit 313 receives multimedia content from the multimedia content database 311, and the multimedia content received by the watermark inserting unit 313 is in a state of original data. The watermark inserting unit 313 also receives watermark information from the watermark information generating unit 312. By inserting watermark information into the multimedia content received by the watermark inserting unit, a watermarked multimedia content (watermarked multimedia content) is generated and stored in the watermarked multimedia content database 314. The watermarked multimedia content is also stored in the database 314 in a compressed state. The generation and storage of such watermarked multimedia content is performed in advance of the request of the multimedia content from the user.

In accordance with the insertion of the watermarking performed by the watermark insertion unit 313, the table database 315 may generate and store association information between identification information of the multimedia content and identification information of the watermark inserted into the multimedia content. Such association information may be generated as a matching table as shown in Table 1 below.

Multimedia Content Identification Information Watermark Identification Information CID001 WM001 CID002 WM007 CID003 WM010 CID004 WM074 ... ...

As can be seen from Table 1, it is possible to know what is the watermark embedded in each of the various multimedia contents. This makes it possible to perform a function as forensic marking in association with user identification information as described below.

When the multimedia content request from the user terminal 320 is received through the receiving unit 317, watermarked corresponding to the multimedia content requested by the user among the watermarked multimedia contents stored in the watermarked multimedia content database 314. Multimedia content can be retrieved and extracted. In addition, when the user terminal 320 accesses the distribution server 310 for the request of the multimedia content through the receiver 317, the user identification information may be obtained. The user identification information may include one or more of an attribute such as a user ID, an access date, and an access IP.

Providing watermarked multimedia content corresponding to the request of the user terminal 320 to the user In parallel, the table database 315 generates association information of the identification information of the user and the identification information of the multimedia content to be provided to the user. Can be stored. Such association information may be stored as a matching table as shown in Table 2 below.

Multimedia Content Identification Information Watermark Identification Information User Identification Information CID001 WM001 USER001 CID002 WM007 USER042 CID003 WM010 USER002 CID004 WM074 USER001 ... ... ...

According to an embodiment of Table 2, user identification information is additionally generated by being associated with content identification information and watermark identification information stored in a matching table as shown in Table 1.

In addition, according to another embodiment of the present invention, as the matching table separate from the matching table of Table 1, the association information of the multimedia content identification information and the user identification information is generated or the association information only of the watermark identification information and the user identification information. May be generated.

The association information is generated between the multimedia content identification information, the watermark identification information, and the user identification information and stored in the table database 315, or the association information is generated between the multimedia content identification information, the watermark identification information, and the user identification information. At the same time, the transmitter 316 transmits the watermarked multimedia content corresponding to the multimedia content requested by the user to the user. The transmitter 316 transmits the watermarked multimedia content, and the user terminal 320 may receive the watermarked multimedia content to play and watch in real time. Such a transmission may be a transmission for a streaming service.

After providing the watermarked multimedia content to the user terminal 320, even if the user illegally duplicates or distributes it, related information on which user is provided which multimedia content including which watermark is provided to the service provider side. Since it is maintained in the distribution server, it is possible to trace the illegal distribution route and prevent such illegal acts in advance.

The operation and interaction of the respective components 311 to 317 of the above-described distribution server 310 are suitably controlled by the controller 318, and the signal or data between the respective components 311 to 317. Is transmitted over the bus 319.

Up to now, preferred embodiments of a method and apparatus for providing a real-time multimedia content including a watermark according to the present invention have been disclosed and described, but this is only an example for those skilled in the art to which the present invention belongs. It will be clearly understood that the scope of the technical spirit of the present invention is not limited to these embodiments, and it is apparent that various changes, modifications, substitutions or substitutions may be made. In addition, it is obvious that the technical idea of the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, but only by the appended claims and equivalent technical principles thereof.

1 is a block diagram illustrating an overall process of providing multimedia content including a watermark according to a user's request.

2 is a block diagram of a method for generating and providing multimedia content including a watermark in a service provider terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention.

3 is a block diagram of a system including a distribution server for generating and providing multimedia content including a watermark according to an embodiment of the present invention.

* Description of the symbols for the main parts of the drawings *

310: Distribution Server 311: Multimedia Contents Database

312: watermark information generation unit 313: watermark insertion unit

314: Watermarked Multimedia Content Database

315: table database

Claims (9)

A method of providing multimedia content including a watermark from a service provider terminal to a user terminal in real time, Inserting a predetermined watermark into each of the one or more multimedia contents to generate and store one or more watermarked multimedia contents; Generating and storing association information between identification information of the user and identification information of the predetermined multimedia content when receiving a request for predetermined multimedia content among the one or more multimedia contents from the user terminal; And And providing the user terminal with the watermarked multimedia content corresponding to the requested multimedia content. The method of claim 1, Generating and storing the one or more watermarked multimedia contents may include: And generating and storing association information between the identification information of the multimedia content and the identification information of the predetermined watermark. The method of claim 1, Generating and storing association information between the identification information of the user and the identification information of the predetermined multimedia content may include: And generating and storing at least one of identification information of the multimedia content and identification information of the predetermined watermark and related information of the identification information of the user. The method of claim 1, Providing the watermarked multimedia content to the user terminal, Providing the watermarked multimedia content to the user terminal as a streaming service. The method of claim 1, Generating and storing association information between the identification information of the user and the identification information of the predetermined multimedia content, and providing the watermarked multimedia content to the user terminal in parallel; How to provide real-time multimedia content. An apparatus for providing multimedia content including a watermark to a user terminal in real time, A watermarked multimedia content database for generating and storing one or more watermarked multimedia contents by inserting a predetermined watermark into each of the one or more multimedia contents; A receiving unit which receives a request for predetermined multimedia content of the one or more multimedia contents from the user terminal; An association information table database for generating and storing association information between the identification information of the user and the identification information of the predetermined multimedia content according to the request received by the receiving unit; And And a transmitter for providing the water terminal with the watermarked multimedia content corresponding to the requested multimedia content. The method of claim 6, The watermarked multimedia content database, And a matching table for storing association information between the identification information of the multimedia content and the identification information of the predetermined watermark. The method of claim 6, The association information table database, And a matching table for storing at least one of identification information of the multimedia content and identification information of the predetermined watermark and association information of the identification information of the user. The method of claim 6, The transmitting unit, Providing the watermarked multimedia content to the user terminal as a streaming service.

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