A system and methods for the creation, management, and distribution of media entity fingerprinting are provided. In connection with a system that convergently merges perceptual and digital signal processing analysis of media entities for purposes of classifying the media entities, various means are provided to a user for automatically processing fingerprints for media entities for distribution to participating users. Techniques for providing efficient calculation and distribution of fingerprints for use in satisfying copyright regulations and in facilitating the association of meta data to media entities are included. In an illustrative implementation, the fingerprints may be generated and stored allowing for persistence of media from experience to experience. In various non-limiting embodiments, the processing of fingerprints includes calculating the average information density of the media entities, determining the standard deviation of the calculated information of the media entities, calculating the average critical band energy of the media entities, calculating the average standard deviation of the critical band energy of the media entities, determining the play-time of the media entities and processing the information density, the standard deviation of the information density, the critical band energy, the standard deviation of the critical band, and the play time to produce a bit-sequence representative of the fingerprint.