Patent ID: 8191098

Claim:
A method of distributing content from a plurality of different content providers to subscriber devices, comprising: receiving and storing content files from a plurality of different content providers at a multi-source data center, including storing associated data for each content file, the associated data comprising file content meta-data and content preference settings associated with the content provider of each content file at the multi-source data center; connecting the multi-source data center to a plurality of multi-source content distribution providers over a multi-source distribution network, each multi-source content distribution provider associated with a selected group of subscriber devices for connection with the subscriber devices over at least one second network; connecting at least one multi-source content distribution provider to a selected subscriber device in the associated group over the second network; receiving a request for at least one content file from the subscriber device; when the request for the content file is received from the subscriber device, comparing the content preference settings of the content provider of the requested content file with the distribution preference settings of the local content distribution provider and comparing the subscriber preference settings of the requesting subscriber device with the content meta-data of the requested file; and providing the content of at least one requested content file from the multi-source data center to the selected subscriber device through the content distribution provider associated with the subscriber device only if a predetermined match is found between the content preference settings and distribution preference settings, and between the content meta-data and subscriber preference settings.