SUMMARY

The dramatic rise in popularity of home networking products has raised concerns— first within the motion picture industry and then among the entertainment, electronics, and broadcast industries—about unauthorized copying of copyrighted digital content transmitted between digital electronics products. The flotation of digital signals around a home network is a hacker's dream come true. Consequently, an organization called Copy Protection Technical Working Group (CPTWG) was formed to protect entertainment content during all stages of production and distribution.

Digital watermarking technology is seen by content providers as critical to controlling unauthorized copying of content with future digital recording equipment. Data Hiding Subgroup (DHSG) was set up by the CPTWG to establish a standard mechanism for watermarking electronic content.

Since September 1997, when the DHSG began considering ways to check illegal copies of digital-video contents, 11 proposals by 11 companies had been squeezed down to three by groups composed of IBM/NEC, Hitachi/Pioneer/Sony, and Digimarc/ Macrovision/Philips. Now the first two groups have allied under the Galaxy banner, leaving only two coalitions to champion opposing digital watermarking standards. Content management and protection systems should ensure that only authorized actions (uses of content) are performed with the content.