A SDMI-compliant portable medium and a non-SDMI-compliant portable medium can be selectively connected to a licensed compliant module. When transferring copyright-protected encrypted content data from the licensed compliant module, whether the destination of transfer is the SDMI-compliant portable medium or the non-SDMI-compliant medium is determined. When the destination is found to be the SDMI-compliant portable medium, the number of times the encrypted content data can be transferred is restricted. When the destination is found to be the non-SDMI-compliant portable medium, the return (or check-in) of the encrypted content data from the non-SDMI-compliant portable medium to the licensed compliant module is disabled.