Patent ID: 7958054

Claim:
A song data reproduction apparatus comprising: a transmitting section that sends an order for requesting a purchase or a preview of a content of a music performance to a server; a receiving section that downloads song data from the server in response to the order, the song data being composed of performance data and order information corresponding to the performance data, the performance data representing the content of the music performance and containing reproduction limiting information for limiting a reproduction state of the content of the music performance, and the order information indicating at least either a purchase or a preview associated with a usage right of the content of the music performance; a storage section; a determining section that determines whether the song data has already been stored in the storage section; a writing section that rewrites the order information contained in the stored song data with the order information contained in the received song data when the determining section determines that the song data has already been stored and that writes the received song data into the storage section when the determining section determines that the song data is not stored in the storage section; a usage right identification section that refers to the order information of the song data containing the performance data to be reproduced, for identifying the usage right of the content of the music performance in terms of the purchase or the preview; a limiting information read section that reads the reproduction limiting information from the performance data when the identified usage right indicates the preview, and does not read the reproduction limiting information from the performance data when the identified usage right indicates the purchase; and a reproduction control section that specifies a portion of the performance data according to the read reproduction limiting information when the identified usage right indicates the preview, then reproduces only the specified portion of the performance data, and does not reproduce other portions of the content of the performance data than the specified portion, the reproduction control section reproducing all of the performance data when the identified usage right indicates the purchase, wherein the reproduction control section reproduces all of the performance data without reading the reproduction limiting information when the writing section rewrites the order information indicating the preview to the order information indicating the purchase.