Abstract Digital watermarking techniques have been developed to protect the intellectual property. A digital watermarking system is basically judged based on two characteristics: security robustness and image quality. In order to obtain a robust visible watermarking in practice, we present a novel watermarking algorithm named adaptive content and contrast aware (ACOCOA), which considers the host image content and watermark texture. In addition, we propose a powerful security architecture against attacks for visible watermarking system which is based on game-theoretic approach that provides an equilibrium condition solution for the decision maker by studying the effects of transmission power on intensity and perceptual efficiency. The experi...