Patent ID: 8145030

Claim:
An apparatus to record a content onto a target recording medium, the content being encrypted by a first cryptographic key and being recorded on a source recording medium embedded with a predetermined digital water mark, the source recording medium recording a content certificate thereon, the content certificate including a certificate type indicating a record type of the content on the source recording medium, the apparatus comprising: a certificate verifying unit that verifies whether a combination of the certificate type of the content certificate recorded on the source recording medium and a medium type of the source recording medium is a proper combination; a key storage unit that stores therein a public key corresponding to a second cryptographic key; a requesting unit that transmits, if the certificate verifying unit verifies that the combination is a proper combination, a record-permission request to a license server to get approval to record the content on the target recording medium via an on-line network; a certificate receiving unit that receives, if the license server gives approval to record the content on the target recording medium, a content certificate that includes a certificate type indicating a record type on the target recording medium from the license server; and a recording unit that records the content together with the content certificate received from the license server on the target recording medium, wherein existence of the predetermined digital water mark is determined at the time of playback of the content when the content certificate does not exist in the target recording medium.