Patent ID: 7484093

Claim:
An information processing apparatus, comprising: two or more processing devices which record information on a recording medium or reproduce the information recorded on a recording medium, and include an encrypting/decrypting device which is capable of encrypting the information to be recorded when the information is recorded on the recording medium or decrypting the information to be reproduced from the recording medium when the information is reproduced from the recording medium; a control device which controls the encrypting/decrypting device so as to perform one of the encrypting operation and the decrypting operation; a switching device which switches a transmission path of the information to the encrypting/decrypting device in response to one of the operations performed by the encrypting/decrypting device; and two or more interface devices, each of which is located between a recording medium and a processing device, wherein one of the processing devices decrypts the information to be reproduced from a recording medium via one of the interface devices and another one of the processing devices encrypts the information to be recorded on another recording medium via another one of the interface devices, at the same time.