This paper presents a novel multiple watermarking scheme for copyright protection and authentication. The core idea is to segment the host image into non-overlapping blocks by the means of space filling curve and based on the amount of DCT energy in the blocks. The threshold values are then selected to embed multiple watermarks in different blocks. The watermarks are embedded into the image by modifying the singular values of the blocks. Finally, modified blocks are mapped back to their original positions using inverse space filling curve to get the watermarked image. A reliable extraction algorithm is finally developed for the extraction of watermarks from the distorted image. The feasibility of this method and its robustness against the different kind of attacks are verified by different computer simulations and analysis. © 2013, Springer Science+Business Media New York.