Information available at a decoder is embedded into image content after decoding by first representing that information by at least one film grain pattern and then blending that at least one film grain pattern with the decoded image content. Such image content is typically in the form of a movie and examples of the information to be embedded include identification of the specific decoding device, the user of the decoding device, the time and date of decoding, the model number of the device, the versions of software running on the device, the status of the device or connections to the device, the contents of device registers or memory locations within the device, among many other possible data. When an unauthorized copy of image content is discovered, the copied image content undergoes a comparison to the decoded image content to generate difference data. Thereafter, the difference data undergoes comparison with a database of film grain patterns to recover the embedded data.