Associative management of distributed multimedia assets and associated resources using multi-domain agent-based communication between heterogeneous peers is achieved using an Asset/Resource Management (ARM) platform architecture that has an ARM Framework that is used by Asset Management Agents. The ARM Framework includes an ARM Infrastructure which is a system of protocols and libraries from which communities of agents that are grouped in logical Agent Domains are built. The agents communicate via the KQML language embedded within TCP/IP messages, advertise their capabilities and cooperate together to perform meaningful work. An XML-based language is used to embed "content" within the KQML language, providing a self-describing data representation using various character sets. The ARM Framework includes system agents including in each Agent Domain a Resolver for keeping track of asset logical locations, an Agent Name Server (ANS) for keeping track of security access to the assets, and the "Yellow Pages" containing the Advertised System Knowledge (ASK) agent for keeping track of the capabilities of the Asset Management Agents.