Patent ID: 7028340

Claim:
A contents access control apparatus which provides a control on an access to contents to be provided by an authenticated information provider to a user, said apparatus comprising: a utilization unit which utilizes the contents stored in a recording medium which stores contents and license information, the utilization unit including a plurality of physical elements for reading out and decoding the contents and the recording medium, to which identifying information are respectively allocated, wherein the contents, and the identifying information of the physical elements for reading out and decoding the contents and the recording medium are recorded on the recording medium in correlation with each other, and a logical product of at least three identifying information is set in the license information; and an access control unit which controls access to the contents based on the identifying information allocated to physical elements for reading out and decoding the contents and the recording medium of said utilization unit and the license information regarding the access to the contents, wherein the license information is recorded on said recording medium.