It might be possible to embed that metadata in the target as well. If I were doing this I would copy and paste the text off into some editor that only supports raw text like notepad, then use screenshots of any images, then reassemble them into a "clean" version by hand. I would also probably not ever do this because that's a giant pain.

Potentially, I suppose. But then most people who want a pirated copy of an article are probably looking for something with at least the right pagination – makes citation easier. So it depends on how much effort you're willing to give to that endeavour haha. Anything is better than nothing in a pinch though.