Concepts for an Watermarking Technique for Music Scores

Today the quality of copying machines makes it possible for everyone to copy any kind of printed documents without significant loss of quality. Especially copying of printed music is often done. At the same time web-based distribution of music scores in digital representations becomes widespread. Although copying music scores can’t be stopped, it is possible to trace a leak by hiding information in the music score itself. This can be done by watermarking techniques. Two different concepts are presented here: The first regards a music score as an image and uses standard image watermarking techniques. The second is a symbolic approach. Here some music symbols are used by changing their features for hiding information in the music score. This approach has some advantages in robustness and visibility. By choosing suitable features a blind detection of the watermark is possible.