Patent ID: 7680801

Claim:
A method of managing at least one digital asset in a distributed computing environment, the method comprising: (a) generating, by a client, an asset identification tag for a digital asset stored at the client; (b) associating the asset identification tag with the digital asset; and (c) storing the asset identification tag at the client, such that the asset identification tag is stored separate from the digital asset: wherein the asset identification tag includes meta-data; and wherein the client is constructed and arranged to: resolve the meta-data of the asset identification tag into one of (i) unmanaged meta-data, (ii) locally managed meta-data, and (iii) records managed meta-data, subsequently remove the meta-data from the client and not send the meta-data to a central computing device when the meta-data is resolved by the client to be unmanaged meta-data, save the meta-data in the client and not send the meta-data to the central computing device when the meta-data is resolved by the client to be locally managed meta-data, and save the meta-data in the client and send the meta-data to the central computing device when the meta-data is resolved by the client to be records managed meta-data.