VERFAHREN UND VORRICHTUNG ZUR NUTZUNG VON WASSERZEICHEN IN MULTIMEDIA BOTSCHAFTEN

A system for and method of controlling retransmission of a content item contained in a multimedia message. The method comprises: receiving the message containing the content item from a sender together with an identifier of an intended recipient of the message, processing the content item to detect the presence or absence of a watermark therein, if the absence of a watermark has been detected, *causing a watermark to be embedded in the content item, and* allowing retransmission of the message including the watermarked content item to the intended recipient, and otherwise controlling retransmission of the message including the content item to the intended recipient. Controlling may comprise e.g. charging a fee for the retransmission, restricting forwarding of the watermarked content item or disallowing the retransmission. The invention relates to the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). Basically, the invention proposes "tagging" the content transmitted in a multimedia message with a watermark before sending it to the recipient. Preferably, such tagging is done in the store-and-forward component of the system. In the system as described above this would be the MMS 120.