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Copyright protection of medical images: A view of the state-of-the-art research and current developments

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Abstract

Recently, copyright protection of medical images has been critical, and even small changes can endanger the life of a patient. To verify the authenticity of these images, digital watermarking technology is widely used in the field of healthcare applications. We aim to provide a detailed survey of the state-of-the-art research and current developments of copyright protection schemes, focusing particularly on watermarking in the medical domain. Initially, we present the basic concepts of watermarking along with their major characteristics and novel applications. Further, we comprehensively review the recent literature, including that on watermarking in the spatial and transform domains, encryption- and compression-based watermarking, watermarking using optimisation, watermarking in machine/deep learning, biometric and blockchain environments of watermarking. Finally, we provide a tabular comparison of state-of-the-art research and potential issues in this field.

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Kumar, J., Singh, A.K. Copyright protection of medical images: A view of the state-of-the-art research and current developments. Multimed Tools Appl 82, 44591–44621 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-023-15315-y

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