System for providing a digital watermark in an audio signal

This invention relates generally to signal processing systems, and more particularly to a signal processing system for providing a digital watermark in an audio signal. The foregoing problems are solved and a technical advance is achieved by a computer-implemented system for providing a digital watermark in an audio signal. In a preferred embodiment, a audio file, such as a .WAV file, representing an audio signal to be watermarked is preprocessed using an algorithm of the present invention herein referred to as the "PAWS algorithm" to determine and log the location and number of opportunities that exist for inserting a watermark into the audio signal such that it will be masked by the audio signal. The user can adjust certain parameters of the PAWS algorithm before the audio file is processed. A/B/X testing between the original and watermarked files is also supported to allow the user to undo or re-encode the watermark, if desired.