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It is noted that the authors have tried to address the pending issues to the best of their abilities, and the manuscript is in a reasonable shape as per the reviewer inputs.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Sedat Akleylek, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
While the reviewers find the revision addresses most of the detectable concerns, there nevertheless remains a concern on whether the treatment of the related works is adequate. In particular, the quality of papers and their venue of publications have been identified as a matter of concern. This is pertinent in two ways: (i) Is the related work really reasonably complete? (ii) If so, is the problem statement uninteresting for there to be related works being published in high quality venues?
Separately, I noticed your response regarding reuse of text from thesis/another journal publication. That still would be a case of self-plagiarism that needs to be properly mitigated.
All the queries are resolved now.
Made all the suggested changes.
Conclusion and future directions are also upto the mark.
The author has responded well and made revisions to my comments. However, the references [23]-[26] compared in Table 1 do not seem to be from outstanding journals in the field. It is recommended that authors make comparisons with SOTA works in top journals or conferences in the field.
The author has responded well and made revisions to my comments. I have no further comments on "Experimental design".
The author has responded well and made revisions to my comments. I have no further comments on "Validity of the findings".
The references [23]-[26] compared in Table 1 do not seem to be from outstanding journals in the field. It is recommended that authors make comparisons with SOTA works in top journals or conferences in the field.
The reviewers have identified several shortcomings across the proposed approach (e.g., potential design flaws that make the system vulnerable), the lack of rigor and formalism in security analysis (e.g., exploration of the vulnerabilities, efficacy of proposed mitigation) as well as how the ideas and results are presented. Please address properly the concerns across all these aspects.
**PeerJ Staff Note:** Please ensure that all review, editorial, and staff comments are addressed in a response letter and that any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate.
The English is clear and proficient. However, please proofread carefully since some misspellings are still present.
For example: in line 88 (imtamability ?), Figure 6 queries?
The study has sufficient references and introductions.
However, the proposed business flow contradicts the purpose of blockchain.
At first, it stated that blockchain can minimize the dependence on third-party institutions.
However, in lines 249-250, it says that the image must be submitted to the nearest RA for registration.
It opens the chance for RA to act maliciously by claiming the image for itself, and also negates the independence from a third-party institution.
If the RA is malicious, it can swindle the submitted image and submit it to the other RA before processing the registration request.
If the RA is a trusted entity, it nullifies the urgency of using blockchain. It is better to use a typical centralized server.
My suggestion is that the image must first be submitted to the blockchain in a secret format before applying for registration.
In case the registration is rejected due to duplication, it can challenge the decision by revealing the secret image to claim that it owns the image earlier than the duplicate.
The explanation of key point abbreviations (ABM and MDQ) is missing from the paper, despite both being the spotlight of the paper.
Even though ABM is picked up from one of the references, there should be a brief description regarding what it stands for and what it does.
The MDQ (multidimensional data query) term is the most confusing one.
The MDQ is nowhere to be found in the Methodology section, despite it being the main parameter.
It appears only in the introduction and result sections.
Please elaborate on the relation between the MDQ and MKD tree.
It is unclear how it works and how it is connected to the MKD tree.
The experiment is properly investigated, however, more explanation is required to satisfy the reader.
My curiosity is why the work in [20] is not included in the comparison, despite it also using the MKD tree, and why only the AB-M [23] is the chosen one.
Please elaborate more on the reason for this selection.
Despite the missing key points, the finding is properly validated.
The block construction time and the originality detection queries are adequate to justify the efficiencies.
Further revision is required to connect the missing link between the MDQ scheme and the MKD tree.
What MDQ is and how it is implemented is unclear.
The reliance on the registration agency is not in line with the purpose of incorporating blockchain.
1. The organization of the article is up to the mark, but technically sound.
2. Need to elaborate more about the motivation and novelty behind the proposed work.
3. The literature review section is also poor. Add some more recent works.
4. The methodology needs some more explanation on each step.
5. Write the algorithm more professionally.
6. Very casual approach to paper writing.
7. Future work should be more specific.
Need more experimental results, especially the analysis part is weak.
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This paper proposes a blockchain-based image copyright registration method that introduces a Merkle-KD tree (MKD tree) structure to support multidimensional data queries, aiming to improve the efficiency of copyright registration and querying. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms existing solutions in terms of storage structure construction and originality detection queries. However, the following issues remain:
(1) The application of blockchain in the field of image copyright protection is a widely studied and popular topic. The authors should further broaden and deepen the literature review and provide a comparative analysis table with the most relevant works.
(2) The main innovation lies in the theoretical proposal of an MKD tree structure that supports multidimensional data queries, and the experimental verification of improved query efficiency. However, there is a lack of direct correlation between the theoretical innovation (multidimensional querying) and the experimental innovation (efficiency improvement), which fails to establish a causal relationship.
(3) The practical value and technical challenges of multidimensional queries are not sufficiently explained.
(4) The paper lacks a theoretical explanation for the claimed efficiency improvements.
(5) While the experiments are generally adequate, the implementation conditions should be clearly specified—for example, on which platform the experiments were conducted (Fabric or Ethereum), what the node configurations were, etc.—to enhance the reproducibility of the results.
--While the experiments are generally adequate, the implementation conditions should be clearly specified—for example, on which platform the experiments were conducted (Fabric or Ethereum), what the node configurations were, etc.—to enhance the reproducibility of the results.
--The main innovation lies in the theoretical proposal of an MKD tree structure that supports multidimensional data queries, and the experimental verification of improved query efficiency. However, there is a lack of direct correlation between the theoretical innovation (multidimensional querying) and the experimental innovation (efficiency improvement), which fails to establish a causal relationship.
--The practical value and technical challenges of multidimensional queries are not sufficiently explained.
--The paper lacks a theoretical explanation for the claimed efficiency improvements.
--The application of blockchain in the field of image copyright protection is a widely studied and popular topic. The authors should further broaden and deepen the literature review and provide a comparative analysis table with the most relevant works.
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