Localized audio watermarking technique robust against time-scale modification

Synchronization attacks like random cropping and time-scale modification are very challenging problems to audio watermarking techniques. To combat these attacks, a novel content-dependent localized robust audio watermarking scheme is proposed. The basic idea is to first select steady high-energy local regions that represent music edges like note attacks, transitions or drum sounds by using different methods, then embed the watermark in these regions. Such regions are of great importance to the understanding of music and will not be changed much for maintaining high auditory quality. In this way, the embedded watermark has the potential to escape all kinds of distortions. Experimental results show strong robustness against common audio signal processing, time-domain synchronization attacks, and most distortions introduced in Stirmark for Audio.