Photo Credit: HAND
Talent identifier HAND has been approved as a liaison organization of standards body DDEX, whose metadata carries NIL info across the music industry.
HAND, the Universal Talent Identifier, a nonprofit Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Registration Agency, has announced its approval as a liaison organization of DDEX (Digital Data Exchange), the standards body whose metadata and messaging formats carry identity, rights, and royalty information across the global music industry. HAND is now recognized in DDEX’s Standards Setting Organization category.
The liaison will enable DDEX members to address a central challenge in music metadata: how to identify the people—and the personas—behind recordings, when AI is able to generate a voice, complete an unfinished performance, or present an artist through a digital replica.
DDEX has already moved to address AI disclosure through its generative AI declaration work. HAND addresses the separate but crucial question of identity using a persistent, resolvable identifier for each real person, and for each “Licensed Human Likeness” (a voice model, a digital double, an avatar) that traces back to the human who authorized it.
Using its trademarked “Citation-Backed Notability” methodology, HAND provides neutral, persistent, and freely resolvable identifiers for “quantifiably notable” individuals, their consent-based licensed human likenesses, and their fictional characters across industries. These include music, sports, entertainment, gaming, advertising, news, fashion, and the creator economy.
HAND IDs are designed to work alongside existing identifiers in the music industry and map to ISNI, IPI, VIAF, MusicBrainz, Wikidata, and other authority files rather than replacing them. It adds a resolvable link between a licensed likeness and the actual human to whom it belongs. HAND ID is a ratified WIkidata external identifier (P14750), and HAND’s public resolver is live now.
Crucially, HAND IDs are sourced from verifiable, independent citations—not self-reported claims, follower counts, or “gamed metrics.” As a member of C2PA, CAWG, and IPTC, HAND remains committed to the emergence of a safer, more trustworthy global media ecosystem.
HAND is a nonprofit trade association and the first Talent ID Registry to operate as an official DOI registration agency under the International DOI Foundation. There are over 2.7 million HAND IDs registered in the DOI registry, with more than 3.5 billion DOI resolutions per month across the global DOI system. HAND is one of only 12 DOI registration agencies worldwide.
