{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,17]],"date-time":"2026-04-17T15:34:39Z","timestamp":1776440079108,"version":"3.51.2"},"reference-count":20,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,29]],"date-time":"2025-12-29T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1766966400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"2025 Gansu Province College Teachers Innovation Fund","award":["2025B-167"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2025B-167"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Cryptography"],"abstract":"<jats:p>This study presents a novel framework for digital copyright management that integrates AI-enhanced perceptual hashing, blockchain technology, and digital watermarking to address critical challenges in content protection and verification. Traditional watermarking approaches typically employ content-independent metadata and rely on centralized authorities, introducing risks of tampering and operational inefficiencies. The proposed system utilizes a pre-trained convolutional neural network (CNN) to generate a robust, content-based perceptual hash value, which serves as an unforgeable watermark intrinsically linked to the image content. This hash is embedded as a QR code in the frequency domain and registered on a blockchain, ensuring tamper-proof timestamping and comprehensive traceability. The blockchain infrastructure further enables verification of multiple watermark sequences, thereby clarifying authorship attribution and modification history. Experimental results demonstrate high robustness against common image modifications, strong discriminative capabilities, and effective watermark recovery, supported by decentralized storage via the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). The framework provides a transparent, secure, and efficient solution for digital rights management, with potential future enhancements including post-quantum cryptography integration.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/cryptography10010002","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,29]],"date-time":"2025-12-29T06:25:51Z","timestamp":1766989551000},"page":"2","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["AI-Enhanced Perceptual Hashing with Blockchain for Secure and Transparent Digital Copyright Management"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"10","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0003-7091-3702","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zhaoxiong","family":"Meng","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Tianshui Normal University, Tianshui 741000, China"}]},{"given":"Rukui","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Tianshui Normal University, Tianshui 741000, China"}]},{"given":"Bin","family":"Cao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Tianshui Normal University, Tianshui 741000, China"}]},{"given":"Meng","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Tianshui Normal University, Tianshui 741000, China"}]},{"given":"Yajun","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Tianshui Normal University, Tianshui 741000, China"}]},{"given":"Huhu","family":"Xue","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Tianshui Normal University, Tianshui 741000, China"}]},{"given":"Meimei","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Tianshui Normal University, Tianshui 741000, China"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,29]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Cox, I.J., Miller, M.L., Bloom, J.A., Fridrich, J., and Kalker, T. (2007). Digital Watermarking and Steganography, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.","DOI":"10.1016\/B978-012372585-1.50015-2"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"20","DOI":"10.1109\/79.879337","article-title":"Watermarking Digital Image and Video Data: A State-of-the-Art Overview","volume":"17","author":"Langelaar","year":"2000","journal-title":"IEEE Signal Process. Mag."},{"key":"ref_3","unstructured":"Madushanka, T., Kumara, D.S., and Rathnaveera, A.A. (2024). SecureRights: A Blockchain-Powered Trusted DRM Framework for Robust Protection and Asserting Digital Rights. arXiv."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"12345","DOI":"10.1007\/s11042-024-18514-3","article-title":"Digital Image Copyright Protection Method Based on Blockchain and Zero Trust Mechanism","volume":"83","author":"Zhang","year":"2024","journal-title":"Multimed. Tools Appl."},{"key":"ref_5","unstructured":"Mozumder, A.H., and Basha, M.J. (2025). 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[Master\u2019s Thesis, University of Applied Sciences Hagenberg]."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1186","DOI":"10.1109\/LSP.2025.3547664","article-title":"HashShield: A Robust DeepFake Forensic Framework With Separable Perceptual Hashing","volume":"32","author":"Yang","year":"2025","journal-title":"IEEE Signal Process. Lett."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Meng, Z., Morizumi, T., Miyata, S., and Kinoshita, H. (2018, January 23\u201327). Design Scheme of Copyright Management System Based on Digital Watermarking and Blockchain. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE 42nd Annual Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC), Tokyo, Japan.","DOI":"10.1109\/COMPSAC.2018.10258"},{"key":"ref_11","first-page":"45678","article-title":"Hyperspectral Image Analysis with Subspace Learning-Based Perceptual Hashing for Authentication","volume":"11","author":"Litvinenko","year":"2023","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Berriche, A., Adjal, M.Z., and Baghdadi, R. (2025, January 6\u201310). Leveraging high-resolution features for improved deep hashing-based image retrieval. Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Retrieval, Cham, Switzerland.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-031-88711-6_28"},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"114402","DOI":"10.1016\/j.knosys.2025.114402","article-title":"Blockchain-Assisted Explainable Decision Traces (BAXDT): An Approach for Transparency and Accountability in Artificial Intelligence Systems","volume":"329","author":"Parlak","year":"2025","journal-title":"Knowl.-Based Syst."},{"key":"ref_14","first-page":"10","article-title":"Digital image copyright protection method based on blockchain and perceptual hashing","volume":"25","author":"Zhang","year":"2023","journal-title":"Int. J. Netw. Secur."},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"613","DOI":"10.12785\/ijcds\/100159","article-title":"Design scheme for copyright management system using blockchain and IPFS","volume":"10","author":"Muwafaq","year":"2021","journal-title":"Int. J. Comput. Digit. 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Tools Appl."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Xu, D., Ren, N., and Zhu, C. (2023). Integrity authentication based on blockchain and perceptual hash for remote-sensing imagery. Remote Sens., 15.","DOI":"10.3390\/rs15194860"},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"491","DOI":"10.1109\/TCC.2024.3372814","article-title":"Context-Aware Consensus Algorithm for Blockchain-Empowered Federated Learning","volume":"12","author":"Zhao","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Cloud Comput."}],"container-title":["Cryptography"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2410-387X\/10\/1\/2\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,29]],"date-time":"2025-12-29T06:55:32Z","timestamp":1766991332000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2410-387X\/10\/1\/2"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,29]]},"references-count":20,"journal-issue":{"issue":"1","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,2]]}},"alternative-id":["cryptography10010002"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/cryptography10010002","relation":{},"ISSN":["2410-387X"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2410-387X","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,29]]}}}