Watermarking remotely sensed images (RSI) - (Digital image or relational data?)

A substantial amount of research has been done on the use of invisible watermarking for proof of ownership. This form of digital copyrighting has become an important issue in the area of Information Assurance. Historically, human perceptibility has been exploited to hide watermarks in multi-media (audio, video, imagery, text) but recently, researchers have attempted to imbed invisible watermarks into relational data. Unlike multi-media, relational watermarking methods must hide the watermark in a way that does not change the basic usefulness of the data in terms of query processing. Early results have shown that there are several open issues in this area that need addressing. In this paper we make the argument that spatial data, in the form of remotely sensed images (RSI), does not fit easily into either the digital imagery or relational database domain when attempting watermarking for copyright protection and that much more research is needed in this area.