Smart Contract-Based Encoding-Level Video Copyright Notarization Scheme

Smart Contract-Based Encoding-Level Video Copyright Notarization Scheme

Introduction

The rapid growth of the short video application market, driven by advancements in H.264/H.265 video compression technology, has revolutionized digital content consumption. However, this expansion has also intensified concerns regarding video security and copyright disputes. Existing copyright notarization systems suffer from several critical issues, including a lack of trust in verification parties, opaque verification processes, and difficulties in video content traceability. These challenges undermine the protection of creators’ rights and hinder the development of a fair digital content ecosystem.

To address these limitations, this paper introduces a novel smart contract-based encoding-level video security notarization scheme. The proposed solution leverages the inherent properties of H.264/H.265 encoding to embed copyright owner information as a watermark during the video compression process. This approach ensures robust and secure watermarking while minimizing the impact on video quality. Additionally, the integration of blockchain and smart contract technologies automates and standardizes critical processes such as identity notarization, copyright verification, and dispute resolution, enhancing transparency and trust in the system.

Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed scheme. The similarity comparison algorithm used for video copyright notarization achieves an approximately 2% improvement in F1-score compared to existing state-of-the-art solutions. Furthermore, the smart contract overhead remains within reasonable limits, confirming the practical feasibility of the system.

Background and Motivation

The Rise of Short Video Platforms

Short video platforms have become a dominant force in digital media, with user bases exceeding billions globally. These platforms rely heavily on efficient video compression standards such as H.264 and H.265 to deliver high-quality content while minimizing bandwidth consumption. However, the widespread adoption of these technologies has also led to an increase in unauthorized copying, redistribution, and modification of video content. Such activities not only infringe on creators’ intellectual property rights but also create legal and financial challenges for content platforms.

Limitations of Existing Copyright Protection Methods

Traditional digital rights management (DRM) systems depend on centralized third-party authorities to verify and enforce copyright claims. While these systems provide a structured approach to content protection, they suffer from several drawbacks:

1. Trust Issues: Centralized systems are vulnerable to malicious attacks or internal misconduct, which can compromise the integrity of stored copyright data.
2. Lack of Transparency: Verification processes often lack transparency, making it difficult for users to trust the outcomes of copyright disputes.
3. Inefficiency: Manual intervention in copyright verification and dispute resolution leads to delays and increased operational costs.

Blockchain-based solutions have emerged as a promising alternative, offering decentralized and tamper-proof record-keeping. However, many existing blockchain implementations still rely on manual processes, limiting their efficiency and scalability. Moreover, most solutions focus on post-compression copyright verification, neglecting the need for traceability in the original uncompressed content.

Key Innovations of the Proposed Scheme

The proposed scheme addresses these gaps by combining advanced watermarking techniques with blockchain and smart contract technologies. Key innovations include:

1. Encoding-Level Watermarking: Copyright information is embedded directly during the video encoding process, ensuring traceability back to the original content.
2. Automated Verification: Smart contracts automate identity verification, copyright validation, and dispute resolution, reducing reliance on manual processes.
3. Enhanced Transparency: Blockchain ensures immutable and publicly verifiable records of copyright claims and transactions.

System Design

Overview

The proposed system consists of five primary components:

1. Users: Content creators who register their identity and upload videos with embedded watermarks.
2. Cameras: Devices responsible for capturing and encoding videos with embedded copyright information.
3. Cloud Servers: Platforms that store and process video content, including decoding and similarity comparison.
4. Blockchain: A decentralized ledger that records identity and copyright information immutably.
5. Smart Contracts: Self-executing agreements that automate critical processes such as identity verification and dispute resolution.

Workflow

The system operates in three main phases:

1. Registration Phase

New users submit their identity information to a certification authority (CA), which verifies the authenticity of the provided details. Upon successful verification, the user’s identity is recorded on the blockchain, ensuring tamper-proof storage.

2. Watermark Embedding Phase

The copyright owner’s identity information is partitioned and embedded as a watermark during the video encoding process. The embedding process involves:

• Texture Block Selection: Intra_4x4 luminance blocks with high texture complexity are identified using Canny edge detection.

• Watermark Generation: The user’s identity is combined with a CRC-32 checksum to create a robust watermark.

• Watermark Embedding: The watermark is inserted into selected 4×4 sub-blocks with the highest non-zero quantized DCT coefficients, ensuring minimal visual impact.

3. Smart Contract-Based Notarization and Arbitration

After encoding, the camera uploads the watermarked video to the cloud server. The server performs the following steps:

1. Decoding: Extracts the original video and embedded identity information.
2. Similarity Comparison: Compares the video against existing copyrighted content using advanced algorithms to detect potential infringements.
3. Smart Contract Verification: The smart contract validates the identity information and similarity results before approving the copyright notarization.

If a dispute arises, users can request arbitration through the smart contract, which retrieves and verifies the copyright records stored on the blockchain.

Security Considerations

Watermark Security

The proposed watermarking scheme ensures:
• Robustness: The watermark resists common attacks such as recompression and noise addition.

• Blind Extraction: Watermarks can be extracted without requiring the original video, reducing computational overhead.

• Content Authentication: CRC-32 checksums enable detection of tampering in the embedded identity information.

Copyright Notarization Security

The blockchain-based system provides:
• Immutable Records: Copyright claims cannot be altered or deleted once recorded.

• Transparent Processes: Smart contract execution is visible to all participants, ensuring fairness.

• Decentralized Trust: Eliminates reliance on a single authority, reducing the risk of malicious behavior.

Experimental Evaluation

Video Similarity Comparison

The performance of the similarity comparison algorithm was evaluated using the VCDB core dataset, which contains 528 videos and 9,000 annotated near-duplicate video pairs. The algorithm employs a Transformer-based compact encoding technique (TCE-LNDV) combined with the ViSiL architecture for fine-grained spatiotemporal similarity learning.

Key findings include:
• The algorithm achieves an average F1-score of 86.72% across five-fold cross-validation, outperforming existing methods.

• A low sampling rate of 2 frames per second reduces computational overhead without compromising accuracy.

Smart Contract Overhead

Gas consumption measurements for smart contract functions demonstrate:
• Consistent Costs: Similarity comparison operations maintain a stable gas cost of 605 per transaction.

• Linear Scalability: Identity verification and copyright arbitration costs scale predictably with transaction volume.

• Practical Feasibility: All operations remain within reasonable gas limits, ensuring cost-effective deployment.

Conclusion

The proposed smart contract-based encoding-level video security notarization scheme offers a comprehensive solution to the challenges of modern copyright protection. By integrating watermarking during the video encoding process and leveraging blockchain for transparent and automated verification, the system ensures robust, efficient, and trustworthy copyright management.

Future work will focus on extending the framework to additional media types, such as audio, and further optimizing the computational efficiency of the similarity comparison algorithms.

doi.org/10.19734/j.issn.1001-3695.2024.05.0174

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