Digital content distribution framework

A digital content distribution system comprising:

• a plurality of components providing services in support of digital content distribution, the plurality of components including a credentialing authority component and an access control component, each of a plurality of participants in the digital content distribution system registers with the credentialing authority, the plurality of participants including a content publisher and a plurality of enterprise content consumers, in response to a registration request by or on behalf of a participant of the plurality of participants, the credentialing authority component is configured to receive a public key associated with the participant, assign the participant a unique resource identifier (URI) that uniquely identifies the participant within the digital content distribution system, and return an identity certificate for use by the participant during subsequent interactions with other of the plurality of components;
• an access control component configured to maintain information regarding access rights of each of the plurality of enterprise content consumers to digital content made accessible via the digital content distribution system directly or indirectly from the content publisher;
• and
• a digital content distribution system interface corresponding to each of the plurality of participants, the digital content distribution system interface capable of being customized for the corresponding participant and configured to coordinate interactions among the corresponding participant and a plurality of components of the digital content distribution system according to predetermined business processes associated with the corresponding participant.

A digital content distribution system comprising:

• a plurality of components providing services in support of digital content distribution, the plurality of components including a credentialing authority component and an access control component, each of a plurality of participants in the digital content distribution system registers with the credentialing authority, the credentialing authority component is configured to receive an encryption key associated with a participant and assign the participant an identity certificate for use by the participant during subsequent interactions with other of the plurality of components;
• an access control component configured to maintain information regarding access rights of the plurality of participants to digital content accessible via the digital content distribution system;
• and
• a digital content distribution system interface corresponding to each of the plurality of participants, the digital content distribution system interface configured to coordinate interactions among the corresponding participant and a component of the plurality of components of the digital content distribution system including determining a type of message passing to be employed with the component based upon information regarding a computer system upon which the digital content distribution system interface is running and information regarding a computer system upon which the component is running.

A software distribution system comprising:

• a plurality of components providing services in support of software distribution, the plurality of components including a credentialing authority component and an access control component, each of a plurality of participants in the software distribution system registers with the credentialing authority, the plurality of participants including a publisher and a plurality of enterprises, in response to a registration request by or on behalf of a participant of the plurality of participants, the credentialing authority component is configured to receive a public key associated with the participant, assign the participant a unique resource identifier (URI) that uniquely identifies the participant within the software distribution system, and return an identity certificate for use by the participant during subsequent interactions with other of the plurality of components;
• an access control component configured to maintain information regarding access rights of each of the plurality of enterprises to software products made accessible via the software distribution system directly or indirectly from the publisher;
• and
• a software distribution system interface corresponding to each of the plurality of participants, the software distribution system interface configured to coordinate interactions among the corresponding participant and a plurality of components of the software distribution system including determining a type of message passing to be employed with the plurality of components based upon information regarding a computer system upon which the digital content distribution system interface is running and information regarding a computer system upon which the particular component is running.

A computer-implemented method comprising:

• receiving a session establishment request at an identity management component of a digital content distribution system from a registered participant of a plurality of registered participants of the digital content distribution system, the plurality of registered participants including at least a content publisher that provides digital content to the digital content distribution system for consumption by other of the plurality of registered participants and a content consumer organization that consumes the digital content from the digital content distribution system, the session establishment request including (i) information indicative of a unique resource identifier (URI) that uniquely identities the registered participant within the digital content distribution system and (ii) information indicative of a public key associated with the registered participant;
• the identity management component storing the public key associated with the registered participant in a key datastore;
• and
• the identity management component generating and returning to the registered participant an identity credential digitally signed by the identity management component with a private key associated with the identity management component, the identity credential allowing the registered participant to obtain access to content distribution services provided by a plurality of other components of the digital content distribution system.

A software distribution system comprising:

• a plurality of components each providing one or more services in support of software distribution;
• and
• an access control component, communicatively coupled to a plurality of participants in the software distribution system via a network, configured to maintain information regarding access rights of the plurality of participants to software products that are accessible via the software distribution system, the software products created by one of the plurality of participants,
• validate requests from content consumer participants of the plurality of participants to consume licenses relating to the software products,
• authenticate the requests, and
• selectively authorize valid and authenticated requests based upon the information regarding access rights associated with the content consumer participants.

A method of managing rights to software comprising:

• receiving a notification regarding an enterprise/seller contract relating to a software product stored by an access control component of a software distribution system, the notification containing information regarding the enterprise/seller contract including information indicative of an enterprise consumer participant of a plurality of registered participants in the software distribution system and information indicative of the software product;
• receiving a consumption request at the access control component from the enterprise consumer participant, the consumption request including information indicative of the software product and an identity credential issued by a credentialing authority component of the software distribution system;
• responsive to the consumption request, the access control component validating the consumption request and authenticating the identity of the enterprise consumer participant based upon the identity credential;
• and
• after confirming the validity of the consumption request and confirming the identity of the enterprise consumer participant, transmitting digital content representing the software product to the enterprise consumer participant.

A method of managing rights to software comprising:

• receiving digital content representing a software kit at an access control component of a software distribution system from a publisher participant of a plurality of registered participants in the software distribution system;
• the access control component storing the software kit for subsequent release to one or more enterprise consumers of the plurality of registered participants that are authorized to consume the digital content;
• receiving a notification of an enterprise/seller contract relating to the software kit at the access control component, the notification containing information regarding the enterprise/seller contract including information indicative of an enterprise consumer participant of the plurality of registered participants, information indicative of the software kit, information indicative of a number of licenses to the software kit that have been purchased by the enterprise consumer participant;
• receiving a consumption request at the access control component from the enterprise consumer participant, the consumption request including information indicative of the software kit and an identity credential issued and digitally signed by a credentialing authority component of the software distribution system;
• responsive to the consumption request, the access control component validating the consumption request and authenticating the identity of the enterprise consumer participant based upon the identity credential;
• and
• after confirming the validity of the consumption request and confirming the identity of the enterprise consumer participant, transmitting the digital content to the enterprise consumer participant.