It was a great achievement for dA to finally include a watermarking feature that allows protection over their works against rippers from dA & also outside dA. However there are still considerable flaws about this system that many should be aware at.


There are two noticeable factors about the watermark feature:

1. The watermark is visible

This is actually a great risk indeed. dA anticipated to make the watermark visible to prevent possible rippers from having the thought of stealing the artwork. But the knowledge that a watermark is present also makes it easier to tamper for more skilled rippers, also considering that it is expected that it is the only watermark present.

There are two kinds of watermark, fragile and robust. In dA's case, fragile embedding is applied, so that if the image is tampered, it would be easily identified by its watermark. But the watermark can only be perceived by the eyes, without a detection algorithm (correct me if I'm wrong). A skilled ripper would be able to "mask" (to hide) the watermark, making it invisible. dA should've considered making the watermark robust to many filtering attacks.


But isn't it too big enough to be considered robust, considering that it fills up most of the space? But then, it is also hollow, which can be tampered by a skilled ripper. This may not be a problem in hard media, but it is in digital copies. Also, a possible rip technique is introduced later.


2. There are available, unwatermarked versions of the image

This is considering that the small-scaled images cam be made available without the watermark (only the full-view image has one). These can actually be used for manipulating the watermark! By having different copies of the image, collusion can be used.

Collusion is the process of having different copies of the same work, considering that they don't have watermarks, or have different watermark configurations embedded, and create a masked work of the image (the watermark would then be undetectable to the eye). Sounds unlikely, but possible from a skilled ripper.


A solition to this problem would be:
- Embed a watermark digitally using encription, detectable through an algorithm program based on the watermark, and not rely on eye identification.
- Embed the watermark as hidden, and detectable only through codec.



A hard task, but an important, notable consideration in dA's side, especially to avoid their stored works being sold outside dA