The business and information architectures outlined in ISO/TR 21449:2004 are designed specifically to assist organizations involved in the development and administration of identification and description schemas for intellectual content and products in understanding the relationships between their organizations and other content industry players involved in production, distribution, and rights management. ISO/TR 21449:2004 does not preclude the possibility of other perspectives on the same environments or other business and information architectures designed to serve other purposes.

The functional requirements for identifiers and descriptors set out in ISO/TR 21449:2004 are centred on intra- and inter-industry business transactions relating to production, distribution, and rights management in the content industries (i.e., the music, film, video, sound recording and publishing industries).

The information model presented in ISO/TR 21449:2004 is focussed specifically on the requirements of the originators, producers, distributors, registration authorities, and rights administrators involved in the development and delivery of intellectual and artistic content. It does not reflect business functions such as marketing and archiving, nor does it directly reflect transactions between secondary service providers such as libraries, archives and museums.