# WATER-GS: Toward Copyright Protection for 3D Gaussian Splatting via Universal Watermarking

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.05695 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05695/

## Key facts

- Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 7 Dec 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [GaussTrap: Stealthy Poisoning Attacks on 3D Gaussian Splatting for Targeted Scene Confusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.20829/) (2025)
- [CompMarkGS: Robust Watermarking for Compressed 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.12836/) (2025)
- [Intellectual Property Protection for 3D Gaussian Splatting Assets: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.03878/) (2026)
- [Position: 3D Gaussian Splatting Watermarking Should Be Scenario-Driven and Threat-Model Explicit](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.02602/) (2026)
- [PatchPoison: Poisoning Multi-View Datasets to Degrade 3D Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.13153/) (2026)
- [4D-GSW: Kinematic-Aware Spatio-Temporal Consistent Watermarking for 4D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.22342/) (2026)
- [NGS-Marker: Robust Native Watermarking for 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.17447/) (2026)
- [FlyMark: Training-Free Invisible Watermarking of 3D Gaussian Splatting via a Fruit Fly Connectome](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.11364/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) has emerged as a pivotal technique for 3D scene representation, providing rapid rendering speeds and high fidelity. As 3DGS gains prominence, safeguarding its intellectual property becomes increasingly crucial since 3DGS could be used to imitate unauthorized scene creations and raise copyright issues. Existing watermarking methods for implicit NeRFs cannot be directly applied to 3DGS due to its explicit representation and real-time rendering process, leaving watermarking for 3DGS largely unexplored. In response, we propose WATER-GS, a novel method designed to protect 3DGS copyrights through a universal watermarking strategy. First, we introduce a pre-trained watermark decoder, treating raw 3DGS generative modules as potential watermark encoders to ensure imperceptibility. Additionally, we implement novel 3D distortion layers to enhance the robustness of the embedded watermark against common real-world distortions of point cloud data. Comprehensive experiments and ablation studies demonstrate that WATER-GS effectively embeds imperceptible and robust watermarks into 3DGS without compromising rendering efficiency and quality. Our experiments indicate that the 3D distortion layers can yield up to a 20% improvement in accuracy rate. Notably, our method is adaptable to different 3DGS variants, including 3DGS compression frameworks and 2D Gaussian splatting.