The present invention provides methods, apparatus and systems to embed pointer information for metadata in content using a method that will not delete the information, so that metadata correlated with content can be correctly obtained, even after the contents have been edited. In an example embodiment, a user terminal for reproducing multimedia content comprises: a pointer information detector, for detecting pointer information that is embedded in the content and that points to the location of metadata in which information concerning the content is written; a network interface, for employing the pointer information to obtain the metadata via a network; and an index information generator, for employing the metadata to generate index information that is correlated with the data structure of the digital content.