Patent ID: 7747337

Claim:
A content playback apparatus for reproducing content data stored in the form of an electronic file, said apparatus comprising: a data-rewritable recording medium configured to store content data and management data for managing the content data, wherein said management data includes identification information and genre information of said content data; an external interface configured to supply the management data read from the recording medium to an external apparatus and receive from the external apparatus edited management data edited by the external apparatus; and a control section configured to rewrite and replace the management data stored in the recording medium by the edited management data received by the external interface from the external apparatus, wherein said edited management data manages the content data, wherein said external apparatus is operable to display said identification information of the content data in order of the genre based on the genre information, and to perform edits based on inputs to said displayed identification information, and wherein the external interface includes data-writing/reading device to respectively write and read data into and from a removable recording medium into and from which the external apparatus can write and read the management data, and wherein the content playback apparatus is operable (a) to edit the management data stored in the data-rewritable recording medium without use of the external apparatus only when the removable recording medium is inserted in the external interface such that the content playback apparatus is unable to edit the management data stored in the data-rewritable recording medium when the removable recording medium is not inserted in the external interface, and (b) to play the content data with the data-rewritable recording medium when the removable recording medium is not inserted in the external interface.