Systems and methods for managing digital assets in a distributed computing environment are described. Meta-data for the digital assets is stored separately from the digital assets. Meta-data for some of the digital assets is copied and stored at a central location. Meta-data for the digital assets is generated by clients of the system. A method of propagating a digital asset identification tag associated with a digital asset includes: receiving a command from a client of the distributed computing system to the central computing resource, the command comprising an indication that a change occurred to the asset identification tag of a digital asset and the changed digital asset identification tag; locating the digital asset identification tag at the central resource; updating the digital asset identification tag in response to the received command; and transmitting the updated tag to another client having a copy of the digital asset.