Patent ID: 7650646

Claim:
An information recording apparatus, comprising: an input interface operable to receive content data, said input interface being of a particular interface type that is one of a predetermined plurality of available interface types; a processor operable to generate copyright information associated with the content data, the copyright information including input source information which indicates the particular interface type of the input interface through which the content data is received; and a recording unit operable to record the content data and the associated copyright information onto a recording medium, the recorded input source information being readable from the recording medium to determine an output format restriction on the content data that is based on the particular interface type of said input interface, wherein the copyright information indicates whether the content data includes copy control information, the copyright information indicates whether the content data is received as input to the information recording apparatus through an IEEE-1394 interface, the copyright information includes information indicating whether the content data include copy control information, and when the information included in the copyright information indicates that the content data include copy control information, the copyright information further includes information indicating whether the copy control information is added to each of a plurality of transport stream (“TS”) packets containing the content data recorded on the recording medium or is added as a digital watermark to the content data recorded onto the recording medium.