Digital watermarking — Effectiveness and implications on anti-circumvention

Rapid technological advancements in the area of digital watermarks have resulted in their sheer variety of types, techniques and applications. Circumvention of digital watermarks is a widespread phenomenon thereby putting protected works such as digital images, video, audio, databases, websites and e-books at risk. Thus, the effectiveness of a digital watermark is significant for the protection of the concerned work. The question is - what is the standard of such effectiveness. Society measures standards as per relevant policies and laws. In this case, the relevant law is Section 65A of the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012. In this paper, we will look into the legal scope of effectiveness of digital watermarks in the context of this Section.