Patent ID: 7609597

Claim:
A reproducing apparatus for use with a plurality of recording media, said reproducing apparatus comprising: a head for scanning a recording medium having recorded thereon content data, content identification information for discriminating at least a content of said content data and unique medium identification information for uniquely identifying the recording medium, and for supplying an output signal therefrom; a reproducing processing unit for receiving the output signal from said head and for processing reproduced content data obtained therefrom so as to provide processed digital content data and analog content data; an identification information extracting unit for extracting the content identification information and the medium identification information corresponding to the content of the processed digital content data and the recording medium scanned to produce the processed digital content data; an output controlling unit for controlling outputting from said reproducing apparatus; and an authentication unit for authenticating whether or not an external device which is connected to the reproducing apparatus to be supplied with said processed digital content data is a recorder, wherein said output controlling unit includes a storage unit for holding said content identification information and said unique medium identification information extracted by said identification information extracting unit each time said processed digital content data is output, wherein said output controlling unit is operable to enable the outputting of specific content data of said processed digital content data to the external device when the external device has been correctly authenticated by said authentication unit as being a recorder and only when a number of copies made of the specific content data by said reproducing apparatus is less than or equal to a preset number representative of a maximum allowable number of copies of the specific content data, said maximum allowable number being a function of the number of copies allowed for the specific content data and the number of distinctly identified units used in the reproducing apparatus which contain the content data, and wherein said analog content data from said reproducing processing unit is outputable regardless of the number of times said analog content data is outputted.