Patent ID: 7895451

Claim:
A non-transitory optical information recording medium for use with a recording and/or reproducing apparatus, comprising: a first area having a write-protection information readable by the apparatus, which indicates whether writing of data to the information recording medium by the apparatus is prevented or not, and a second area having a status information field including status information about the write-protection information, wherein the status information field is updatable even if the write-protection information is set to prevent the writing of data to the whole information recording medium, and wherein: the write-protection information includes: write-protection ON/OFF information indicating to the apparatus whether the write-protection is set, and password ON/OFF information indicating to the apparatus whether a password is set for write-protection, and when the password is set to a specific value in a state where the password ON/OFF information is ON and the write-protection ON/OFF information is ON, a function for preventing the writing of data to the whole information recording medium is set.