Laboratoire de Télécommunications et Télédétection
TELE Image Group

MPEG-4 Intellectual property Rights by ADducing and ORdering
ACTS Project AC302

Contents

Key Words

Copyright/Intellectual Property Protection - Copyright/Intellectual Property Management - Multimedia Security - Watermarking - MPEG4

Project duration

MIRADOR is an ACTS project that started on March 1st, 1998 for a duration of 18 months.
MIRADOR derives from an ACTS project: TALISMAN ACTS project 019

Main Objective

MIRADOR will define, develop and promote an extensive framework for copyright protection, compliant with the MPEG-4 Intellectual Property Rights group specifications, including still pictures, video and audio protection. MIRADOR main objectives consist in : The problem of copyright protection for MPEG-2 signals through watermarking technologies is an existing one currently rising in Europe. Through ACTS projects, European companies have reached a leadership position in the video protection domain. Furthermore, important efforts were devoted to the protection of Audio signals. MIRADOR will altogether consolidate and reinforce this position through the mean of integration of these technologies to offer an extensive framework for protecting MPEG-4 digital works.

A major improvement of MPEG-4, when compared with MPEG-2, relies on the increased possibility of multiplexing various bitstreams corresponding to different types of information. Not only sound and fixed format video signals may be encoded, such as for H263 or MPEG-1 and -2 encoders, but also scenes separated into Video Object Layers, scalable images and more objects or multiplexed ones can be organised and encoded through the MPEG-4 standard. These improvements will lead to the proliferation of numerous and varied new multimedia applications, developed within the framework of MPEG-4.

These new abilities involve new Intellectual Property Rights protection problems, under specification by right holder representatives in MPEG-4, and an adequate adaptation of existing watermarking technologies with regard to the new technical requirements needed. MIRADOR aim consists in designing and developing new solutions, based upon MPEG-4 end-users requirements, which rely on existing tools coming from related ACTS projects : TALISMAN, regarding watermarking technologies, and MOMUSYS, regarding MPEG-4 tools.

Technical approach

Major steps

Participation to MPEG4

IPR management requirements specifications in MPEG-4 are being defined by representatives of right holders into the MPEG-4 IPMP working group. MIRADOR associates one of its representatives with it, drawing together the vision of intellectual property rights protection, representing the views of many individuals, organisations and societies. This guarantees that their needs will be met within the MIRADOR and that the project results are to be taken into account. This analysis will also benefit from TALISMAN (AC019) and OCTALIS (AC242) background on the topic, which will be upgraded in order to tackle with new MPEG-4 requirements.

Copyright protection technologies in the context of MPEG-4

Copyright protection technologies will be integrated into an MPEG-4 software environment. This means integrating audio and video watermarking algorithms into the MPEG-4 software encoders as well as integrate retrieval watermarking algorithms into the MPEG-4 decoders. In this aim, the European Platform for MPEG-4 work (MOMUSYS AC098) will be used. This integration is to be made early in the project in order to evaluate technologies in the MPEG-4 real environment.

Participation to MPEG4

In order to ensure copyright protection, a technique called Watermarking is to be used. Watermarking consists in embedding hidden secret information into still picture, video or audio objects and robust towards MPEG-4 compression. This information is only accessible to authorised people in charge of this object copyright protection.

Summary of trials

MIRADOR will end up with a prototype demonstrating a copyright protection system for MPEG-4 contents, to be prepared for TELECOM99, showing the availability and the efficiency of the protection tools integrated. This demonstration will operate on an MPEG-4 creative work developed by MEDIAfile, SME specialised in contents creation for advertising and education.

Key Issues

Expected achievements

MIRADOR project should provide and demonstrate a technical answer to the problem of the copyright protection in the MPEG-4 environment as well as provide an extensive framework for copyright protection, including still pictures, video and audio objects protection.

Expected impacts

MIRADOR will have an impact on relevant standardisation body (ISO) and will answer the needs of authors societies in copyright protection within the context of a fully multimedia world, by integrating a copyright protection system into MPEG-4 technology. This will enable a work protection, as early as possible, at the content creation stage. MIRADOR, through its actual creation, will prove to the right holders that watermarking is now a matured technology to protect their interests.

Output documents

MIRADOR first deliverable d1: MPEG-4 IPR protection requirements specifications

List of partners

  1. Thomson-CSF (F) (Coordinator)
  2. Université catholique de Louvain (B)
  3. Centro Studi e Laboratori Telecommunizioni (CSELT) (I)
  4. CRL (UK)
  5. The MCPS-PRS Alliance (UK), MCPS homepage PRS homepage
  6. Mediafile (B)

Contacts

Didier NICHOLSON (Coordinator)
Thomson CSF
66 rue du Fossé blanc
F-92231 Genevilliers
France
Phone: +33 1 461 32 579 - Fax: +33 1 461 32 686
Email: didier.nicholson@tcc.thomson-csf.com
Delaigle JF
Université catholique de Louvain
Place du Levant, 2
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Belgium
Phone: +32 10 47 41 05 - Fax: +32 10 47 20 89
Email: Delaigle@tele.ucl.ac.be
Prof. Benoît Macq
Université catholique de Louvain
Place du Levant, 2
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Belgium
Phone: +32 10 47 22 71 - Fax: +32 10 47 20 89
Email: Macq@tele.ucl.ac.be

Other related web pages

Page: UCL | FSA | ELEC | TELE | Useful links | RESTRICTED

August 24th, 1998.
Author: Jean-François Delaigle <Delaigle@tele.ucl.ac.be>