What is Metadata

Metadata

Metadata is information that describes, explains, and facilitates the search, use, or management of data. Metadata can provide context and a deeper understanding of the data. Metadata can provide information such as The origin of the data, Who created it, The purpose of creating the data

Example Metadata

  1. Metadata on web

Metadata on the web such as author, description and other things, this serves for SEO or fingerprtint information about the web

Example

<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta name="description" content="Free Web tutorials">
  <meta name="keywords" content="HTML, CSS, JavaScript">
  <meta name="author" content="John Doe">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
</head>

  1. Metadata in file

such as file type, date the file was created, title, genre, instructions, owner, location, and contact information

Example

metadata

  1. Metadata in emails

such as message ID, date and time of sending, sender and recipient email addresses, and subject

Example

Metadata

  1. Metadata in music, such as artist, song title, album, release year, and music genre

Example

Artist: The name of the artist 
Album: The name of the album 
Track title: The title of the track 
Genre: The genre of the music 
Album artwork: The artwork for the album 
Track number: The number of the track 
Producer: The name of the producer 
Writer: The name of the writer 
Song duration: The length of the song 
BPM: The beats per minute of the song 
Copyright year: The year of copyright

What is Metadata for

Metadata is important for many reasons, including:

  1. Identification: Metadata helps to identify, sort, and deliver audio content

  2. Royalties: More detailed metadata makes it easier to collect and distribute royalties

  3. Sync deals: Metadata can help to land sync deals

  4. Licensing: Metadata is needed to clear and license music

  5. Recognition: Algorithms need proper metadata to recognize tracks

  6. Credit: Rights holders lose money and credit if metadata is incorrect

  7. Releases: Broken or inaccurate metadata can delay releases

Metadata Types

Administrative metadata

Provides important information related to data management, such as data source, file type, copyright, and other technical information. Administrative metadata can also govern data privacy.

Structural metadata

Organizes digital information or data into a connected whole. Structural metadata works like a table of contents so that users can easily find the section they need.

Descriptive metadata

Useful for identifying and describing important information, such as title, author, year of publication, and keywords.

Format Metadata

  1. EXIF

This format is widely used in digital cameras, smartphones, and other devices when creating image metadata. EXIF data can include a wide range of information and often represents most of the metadata in an image file

  1. Information Interchange Model (IIM)

Metadata in IIM provides a way for individuals and organizations to add details to images such as title, genre, instructions, owner or creator, location and contact information, copyright and attribution specifications, and similar types of information

  1. XMP

XMP or Extensible Metadata Platform is an XML standard for storing metadata in digital assets, such as photos, videos, and PDFs. XMP was developed by Adobe Systems Inc. and is an ISO standard

  1. JSON

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a data format used to openly store and exchange information, both by humans and machines

Example

{
    "viewCount": "386536",
    "likeCount": "5800",
    "favoriteCount": "0",
    "commentCount": "11644"
}

Metadata in a Nutshell

Other metadata is very diverse. Metadata is a fingerprint or signature (Sign) regarding the information that will be extracted, for example metadata in social media contains timestamp, reaction, username, location, user agent, device info and IP address and others. Well, this can be called metadata for its respective formats, there are JSON, XML and others depending on the platform. You can perform data extraction for information searches and narrow down the information with the aim of finding clues in investigations.

Tools

  1. Exiftool

  2. XXD

  3. Hex editor

  4. Hex to ASCII

Reff

  1. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/HTML/Introduction_to_HTML/The_head_metadata_in_HTML

  2. https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_meta.asp

  3. https://dittomusic.com/en/blog/music-metadata-explained-what-artists-need-to-know

  4. https://www.bridge.audio/blog/metadata-the-new-cornerstone-of-the-music-industry/

  5. https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/image-metadata

  6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata

  7. https://iptc.org/standards/iim/

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