Open, neutral electronic distribution system for digital content providing distribution channel support to publishers and retailers and abstract fulfillment for publishers

A method of retailer electronic distribution (RED) of digital content for building a digital inventory of products offered by publishers to retailers to sell to consumers, comprising:

• uploading content from a plurality of publishers to a RED server to offer as products to a plurality of retailers to sell, each of the plurality of publishers having only to upload their respective content to the RED server one time;
• for each of the plurality of publishers, enrolling the content of that publisher with the RED server by storing publisher marketing metadata comprising any merchandizing and product information that corresponds to that publisher and is to be offered to consumers via retailers;
• providing a catalog feed from the RED server to a plurality of retailers comprising a catalog with a list of the enrolled content;
• for each of the plurality of retailers, storing retailer information specific to that retailer via the RED server, the stored retailer information being configured to rebrand the enrolled content that is distributed to a consumer computer by that retailer, the storing of the retailer information at the RED server occurring prior to that retailer receiving a request for enrolled content from a consumer at its web-store;
• after a retailer receives a request for selected enrolled content at its web-store from a consumer to initiate a transaction, receiving, at the RED server, a request from that retailer for fulfillment information from the RED server;
• the RED server then generating and providing to that retailer fulfillment information unique to the transaction, and preparing the selected enrolled content for delivery to the consumer using encryption and rebranding with stored retailer information corresponding to that retailer;
• and
• upon authentication of the consumer, decrypting and streaming the selected enrolled content to the consumer in accordance with the fulfillment information from a location different from the retailer web-store;
• wherein the RED server does not operate a web-store to deliver the selected enrolled content to the consumer.